- At my age the only problem is with remembering names. When I call everyone "darling", it has damn all to do with passionately adoring them, but I know I'm safe calling them that. Although, of course, I adore them, too.
- I want to make a film about Tom Paine. I think Tom Paine is one of the greatest men that's ever lived. He lived in the 18th century, as you all know, he was an Englishman who was involved in the writing of American Declaration of Independence, the American Constitution, the French Constitution, wrote the great book called The Rights of Man - commercial over! But nobody wants to make it. Nobody. Because it's politics, it's period, it doesn't have any of the things that now are supposedly our prerequisites to commercial success. I'm going to make it, provided I'll stand on my feet, but it's not easy, any more than Gandhi (1982) was, any more than Cry Freedom (1987) was, et cetera. Those movies are very difficult to make, and if you're not prepared or interested in science fiction, which in terms of movies I'm not, if you're not interested in terms of all the CGI stuff that you can now do in the cinema which is quite remarkable compared to the time that I was making movies, 30, 40, 50 years ago, then if you're not prepared to indulge in the pornography of violence or overt sexual matter, it's very, very difficult. It is hard to raise the money. I don't think it's any easier. It wasn't easy then and I don't think it's become any easier. What I am sad about is that there is now, in America, no equivalent to the art circuit. In other words, the cost of promoting movies, the advertising and promotion of a movie, the budget is almost as large as the cost of the movie. And these huge blockbusters that you see have tens and hundreds of millions of pounds and dollars spent promoting them. And if you don't have something which they believe will reach an enormous audience, then they won't go for it. And so you fall out. And there are companies in the UK, terrific companies, young companies, who made, you know, whether it be Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) or whatever, or Trainspotting (1996) or whatever, who are having a go, but it is not any easier, in fact I think it's even probably more difficult than it was when Forbesy (Bryan Forbes) and I were starting, which is a pity.
- [on the competition between Gandhi (1982) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) at the 1983 Academy Awards] Diana (Diana Hawkins) and I went to see E.T. in Los Angeles shortly before all the awards and we used language, when we came out, to the extent of saying 'we have no chance - E.T. should and will walk away with it'. Without the initial premise of Mohandas K. Gandhi, the film would be nothing. Therefore it's a narrative film but it's a piece of narration rather than a piece of cinema, as such. E.T. depended absolutely on the concept of cinema and I think that Steven Spielberg, who I'm very fond of, is a genius. I think E.T. is a quite extraordinary piece of cinema.
- I hate and despise the pornography of violence. I don't believe that we can totally excuse ourselves from that situation. I believe that both cinema and film to a certain extent have encouraged it.
- [on Kevin Kline] A complex character, a total chameleon - and an engaging and bewitching man. He can charm the birds off the trees, but he is also terribly shy.
- Never operated a camera in my life. Never did home movies. Michael [Michael Attenborough] did, but not me.
- I was on my own union council for twenty-odd years.
- Well, you cannot think of cinema now, and you cannot think of cinema in the UK and not place Chaplin [Charles Chaplin] in the most extraordinary elevated context, if there can be such a thing, in that he was a genius, he was unique.
- There's nothing more important in making movies than the screenplay.
- I just love biography, and I'm fascinated by people who have shifted our destinies or our points of view.
- I think it is obscene that we should believe that we are entitled to end somebody's life, no matter what that person has supposedly done or not done.
- I believe we need heroes, I believe we need certain people who we can measure our own shortcomings by.
- [on an acting performance he considered underrated] Well, I think In Love and War (1996), which had a wonderful performance by Sandy, Sandra Bullock, who the authorities and, the supposed authorities, in cinema didn't want to know about.
- [on his father] He was a generous man, but we were all apprehensive of his displeasure. Always desperate for his approval.
- I can't write, I can't paint, I don't compose.
- I do not have a brain that I long for in dealing with matters of which I am ignorant, that don't come within my ken and a rationale, a reason, and argument and so on, and I can't do that and I'm not in that bracket at all.
- You can't outrun your grief. You have to confront it.
- I'm a passionate trade unionist.
- I came from a family who believed in, in quotes, the Rights of Man, who believed that in order to justify the sort of luxurious life that the majority of us have, related to the whole world, that you had to do something.
- David has asked me, a number of people have asked me and said, What performance do you like best or what's the best film you've made and so on and I don't really have any hesitation that the film I'm least embarrassed by and ashamed of or uneasy about is Shadowlands (1993).
- There are certain things, and they are evident, obviously, without being boring about it, but I mean obviously, the two evident and easy ones being Gandhi (1982) and Cry Freedom (1987), there are things which I do care about very much and which I would like to stand up and be counted.
- I don't read a great deal of fiction, to my shame, other than the classics.
- I am passionately opposed to capital punishment, and I have been all my life.
- I believe in trade unionism, and I believe in democracy, in democratic trade unionism.
- I do care about style. I do care, but I only care about style that serves the subject.
- I prefer fact to fiction.
- My parents always stood up and were counted wherever they saw an injustice being done.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content