Michel Hazanavicius Quotes

• There’s always been a struggle with filmmakers between art and industry, and you have to find a balance.

  Michel Hazanavicius

• The fact that I made a special movie with an old-fashioned style – even if it’s a mix between with modern and old-fashioned things – must mean I feel both ways about change. In a way I’m resisting, but in a way adapting myself to the times.

  Michel Hazanavicius

• Sure, I watched a lot of Hollywood movies. Maybe I’ve seen more Hollywood movies than French movies.

  Michel Hazanavicius

• Sometimes when an actor says something almost perfect, but you know you have to edit it, if you tell them to change something immediately, it will come out great.

  Michel Hazanavicius

• It’s just incredible. When you’re French, coming from a non-English language country, you don’t even dream about Oscar recognition or nominations. It’s just beyond the dream. It’s something very, very special and unique. It’s the highest recognition any filmmaker could dream of.

  Michel Hazanavicius

• It’s about storytelling. The story is told through images. So with the cast, I had to make sure that the emotions were readable without sound… I know some great actors, if you turn off the sound, you don’t really know what they’re saying.

  Michel Hazanavicius

• I watched a lot of silent directors who were absolutely great like John Ford and Fritz Lang, Tod Browning, and also some very modern directors like The Coen Brothers. The directors take the freedom within their own movies to be melodramatic or funny when they chose to be. They do whatever they want and they don’t care about the genre.

  Michel Hazanavicius

• I try to respect the rules of the silent movies and I tried to make signification to make sense, and also the crew were very good and the fact that we shot in LA in the real Hollywood, studios and houses. We shot in the bed of Mary Pickford, and you cannot be any more accurate than that, so that helped a lot.

  Michel Hazanavicius

• I thought ‘The Artist’ was a perfect way to find a good balance. The artistic challenge is obvious because the film is black-and-white and its silent, but I did my best to make the movie accessible and easy to watch. I really don’t want to make elitist movies. I really try hard to work for the audience. Audiences are smart. They get everything.

  Michel Hazanavicius

• I think we are at the very beginning of high changes, not only in terms of digital film, but in the way the movies will be screened, whether they’ll be screened on phones, on computers – on everything.

  Michel Hazanavicius

• I think being a foreigner and talking about Hollywood allowed me to use some cliches and some references that an American would maybe not use.

  Michel Hazanavicius

• I always loved silent movies. I was not a specialist, but I loved them. And when I started directing, I became really fascinated by the format – how it works, the device of the silent movie. It’s not the same form of expression as a talkie. The lack of sounds makes you participate in the storytelling.

  Michel Hazanavicius

• Hollywood is much more than America. Hollywood belongs to all of the planet.

  Michel Hazanavicius

• But I don’t think of myself as a foreigner or a Frenchman! I just think of myself as a director. Whether I’m French or Australian or whatever, it’s really not important.

  Michel Hazanavicius

Michel Hazanavicius (34)

Birth:	29th March, 1967
Nationality:	French
Profession:	Film Director, Producer, Screenwriter

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Today's Anniversary - 17th November

Births

• 1925 - Rock Hudson
• 1901 - Lee Strasberg
• 1942 - Martin Scorsese
• 1958 - Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
• 1916 - Shelby Foote

Deaths

• 1968 - Mervyn Peake
• 1983 - Raymond Aron
• 1995 - Marguerite Young
• 2006 - Ruth Brown
• 1858 - Robert Owen