Best 72 quotes of Elia Kazan on MyQuotes

Elia Kazan

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    Elia Kazan

    Acting, I found, was the biggest charge I ever had. What other artist has it so good? Approval so quick?

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    Elia Kazan

    A film director has to get a shot, no matter what he does. We're desperate people.

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    Elia Kazan

    A good director's not sure when he gets on the set what he's going to do.

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    Elia Kazan

    Anybody who informs on other people is doing something disturbing and even disgusting.

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    Elia Kazan

    For years after I resigned, I was still faithful to their way of thinking. But not in the American Communists.

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    Elia Kazan

    Hey, you must be doin' good, 'cause I never hear from you.

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    Elia Kazan

    I didn't have the problem of finding myself at 45 on the wrong course - I always wanted to be a film director.

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    Elia Kazan

    I don't remember anything anybody said in any Jack Ford picture. Nothing happens except action.

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    Elia Kazan

    If you're going to play a cowboy, show up with the horse at the audition

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    Elia Kazan

    I gave my life to the Group Theatre, because in it I'm building something for myself. What I build, I am.

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    Elia Kazan

    I have no spy stories to tell, because I saw no spies. Nor did I understand, at that time, any opposition between American and Russian national interest.

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    Elia Kazan

    I may be getting old, but not foolish.

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    Elia Kazan

    I joined the Communist Party late in the summer of 1934. I got out a year and a half later.

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    Elia Kazan

    I knew the exuberance of playing before an admiring audience and hearing my secret voice.

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    Elia Kazan

    I know many of the critics and I don't think of them as God-like figures. What can they do to hurt me? Sure, I might be slightly embarrassed for a day, but then you just go your own way.

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    Elia Kazan

    I left the theater; I literally left to begin a new life.

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    Elia Kazan

    I like directors who come on the set and create something that's a little dangerous, difficult or unusual.

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    Elia Kazan

    I'm going to make a film where not one word is really important. I'm going to make it all action.

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    Elia Kazan

    I'm very pro-America, but I feel it necessary to keep in touch with Europe to maintain a perspective.

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    Elia Kazan

    I question the value of stars. I think they're overrated. They get too much money, too much praise.

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    Elia Kazan

    I said to Tennessee, this thing is becoming the Marlon Brando show.

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    Elia Kazan

    I spoke without fear of contradiction. I simply did not suffer self-doubt.

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    Elia Kazan

    I think there should be collaboration, but under my thumb.

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    Elia Kazan

    I truly believe that all power corrupts. Such is probably the thinking behind every political film ever made in Hollywood.

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    Elia Kazan

    It's difficult, if not impossible, to get away with anything false before the camera. That instrument penetrates the husk of the actor; it reveals what's truly happening - if anything, if nothing. A close-up demands absolute truth. It's a severe and awesome truth

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    Elia Kazan

    I used to spend most of my time straining to be a nice guy so people would like me.

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    Elia Kazan

    I value peace, too, when it is not bought at the price of fundamental decencies.

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    Elia Kazan

    I've come to believe that everything worth achieving is beyond one's capacity - or seems so at first. The thing is to persist, not back off, fight your fight, pay your dues, and carry on. Effort is all; continue and you may get there despite everything.

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    Elia Kazan

    I've lost many of my best friends... I'm going to satisfy myself now, not the critics, not even my friends.

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    Elia Kazan

    I want to thank the Academy for its courage and generosity.

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    Elia Kazan

    I was always a self-conscious person.

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    Elia Kazan

    I was an outsider... but I was also sympathetic with people that were struggling to get up, because I struggled to get up.

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    Elia Kazan

    I was born in Turkey in an extremely oppressive climate at the time of pogroms, massacres, really. An immigrant appreciates the freedom more.

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    Elia Kazan

    I was both very successful and very left; the living demonstration of how you could be on the left and still be in the gossip columns and be envied for the money you made.

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    Elia Kazan

    I was not what you'd call a first-class actor, but I did all right.

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    Elia Kazan

    I was taken in by what might be called the Hard Times version of the Communists' advertising or recruiting technique.

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    Elia Kazan

    I was the hero of the young insurgent working class art movement.

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    Elia Kazan

    I was the true future. I understood Communism better than they did.

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    Elia Kazan

    I was very intense. I think it's a privilege to be an actor.

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    Elia Kazan

    I won't go back to the theater. I like some of the things they're doing but it's different now, not something I could do. I'll go on making films the rest of my life.

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    Elia Kazan

    I wouldn't go up on a stage now if you paid a thousand dollars for one minute of acting. It's a nasty experience. You're up there all by yourself. You're so damn exposed.

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    Elia Kazan

    I would rather do what I did than crawl in front of a ritualistic Left and lie the way those other comrades did betray my own soul.

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    Elia Kazan

    Look for the contradictions in every character, especially in your heroes and villains. No one should be what they first seem to be. Surprise the audience.

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    Elia Kazan

    Miller didn't write Death of a Salesman. He released it. It was there inside him, waiting to be turned loose. That's the measure of its merit.

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    Elia Kazan

    Never underestimate the narcissism of a writer.

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    Elia Kazan

    People made suggestions, but, hell, I don't actually listen to anybody, I just go my own way.

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    Elia Kazan

    Some directors, like Stevens [George Stevens], shoot full circle, 360 degrees, and that's what's right for them. I generally shoot at about a seven to one ratio. But part of that is because I've worked on every screenplay, so I'm further along in the visual concept.

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    Elia Kazan

    Stylized acting and direction is to realistic acting and direction as poetry is to prose.

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    Elia Kazan

    Take it from a director: if you get an actor that Sandy Meisner has trained, you've been blessed.

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    Elia Kazan

    The belief that the good in American society will finally win out... I don't believe any more.