Citações

If it were all in the script, why make the film?

[on James Cagney] Jimmy not only has a great serenity, such as I've not seen in an actor outside of Walter Huston, he has a great love of the earth and of his fellow man, an understanding of loneliness.

[on James Dean] The conflict between giving himself and fear of giving in to his own feelings; a vulnerability so deeply embedded that one is instantly moved, almost disturbed by it.

I wish Luis Buñuel had made Os Esquecidos (1950) before I made O Crime não Compensa (1949), because I would have made a hell of a lot better movie.

[on Humphrey Bogart] He was much more than an actor: he was the very image of our condition. His face was a living reproach.

You like these films, but you can't imagine how often they represent only 50% of what I wanted to do. You have no idea how I had to fight to achieve even that 50%.

[on second wife Gloria Grahame] I was infatuated with her but I didn't like her very much.

The closer I get to my ending, the closer I am getting to rewriting my beginning.

[on James Dean] I had realized that, for a successful collaboration, he needed a special kind of climate. He needed reassurance, tolerance, understanding.

The imagination is a pretty precious source of protection.

[on Robert Taylor, whom he directed in A Bela do Bas-Fond (1958)] I was certainly impressed with Taylor's commitment. He worked for me like a true Method actor. I remember Taylor going to an osteologist, poring over X-rays and asking probing questions so that he would have an understanding of where in his body the pain would be from his character's crippled leg.

As a human being, Joan Crawford is a great actress.