Best 16 quotes of Justin Simien on MyQuotes

Justin Simien

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    Justin Simien

    I am more than a black guy. I am a person, I'm storyteller, I'm a son, I'm a friend, so I am all those things so it is frustrating to a degree to be limited by other people's perceptions of me but at the same time, it is true that I am a black guy and it's like I'm rooted in, but not bound by. That sort of mentality, that's the one that I hold to be true.

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    Justin Simien

    If the characters [in a movie] aren't real, if their lives aren't realistic, if you call bullshit at any point in their journey, then the rest of it is invalid.

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    Justin Simien

    I have this natural thing in my head that when I sit down to write something serious, I tend to make jokes. I can't help it. I can't help but desire for the narrative to be as complicated and as truthful as possible. That's just the way my head works.

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    Justin Simien

    I love being entertained sure, but the movies that I live for, the movies that I buy and think about and stay in my mind are the movies that entertain me but leave me with something a little uncomfortable to grapple with in the lobby.

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    Justin Simien

    I love films from all these different points of views that used the idea of the school as a way to talk about the American experience. It took me a while to figure how to write a movie like that, because that's not something you learn at film school

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    Justin Simien

    I love the art house, and when I say the art house, I don't just mean little, independent movies but movies that really aim to be about something and say something and I love those movies.

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    Justin Simien

    I love when scenes are intentionally and meticulously planned so we feel like this is a handcrafted scene that only works in this moment and this movie, and that's the way I approach my films.

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    Justin Simien

    I'm very interested in clans and the way people group together, and there's a lot of group shots. There's a lot of people in positions that people feel like they're in attack mode, kind of pointed at each other in the frame. I'm not a big fan of shooting something that looks like it could belong in any movie, I'm not a fan of okay, "wide shot, wide shot, medium shot, close-up, close-up, we'll figure it out in post." I hate that.

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    Justin Simien

    It is frustrating having to walk through America having to bob and weave people's impressions of me because they see a tall, black guy walking down the street. That is frustrating.

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    Justin Simien

    One of the facets of growing up the way I did, I never had the experience of being solely in the black community. Even my family, my mother is what they call Creole, so she's part French, part black, and grew up in Louisiana. It's a very specific kind of blackness that is different than what is traditionally thought of as the black community and black culture. So, I never felt a part of whatever that was.

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    Justin Simien

    Sometimes identity can be your salvation. It can be liberating to find your place in the world, but at some point, identity can hold you back.

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    Justin Simien

    This film isn't about "white racism", or racism at all. DEAR WHITE PEOPLE is about identity. It's about the difference between how the mass culture responds to a person because of their race and who they understand themselves to truly be. And this societal conflict appears to be one that many share.

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    Justin Simien

    What you want to do is talk about ideas, you write a novel, you have a lecture about those ideas. Satire and comedy are really the only film mediums where you can get into ideas and have people leave the theater without being moralized.

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    Justin Simien

    Calling out the supposed ‘abuse’ of welfare by blacks and other people of color is a time-honored tactic for distracting the general public from actual national issue. It also taps into latent, subconscious racism, which is what right-wing politicians would call a ‘win-win.

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    Justin Simien

    I’m a writer/director, my movie is a hit at Sundance, I have a wonderful loving boyfriend, and wow, I have financial stability. Why can’t I get out of bed still? It made it even worse, because there’s nothing else I want. This is what I’m born to do. I’m living my purpose, I’m paying my rent, what’s missing?

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    Justin Simien

    Unfortunately, 'post racism' is also a myth, like unicorns and black people who survive to the end of a horror movie.