Zitat des Tages von Antoine Fuqua:
Being a kid growing up with Kurosawa films and watching Sergio Leone movies just made me love what it could do to you, and how it could influence you - make you dream.
So it's hard to be an artist and be true to the reality of the world you want to create and also make it entertaining and successful financially.
If you want to be in Hollywood, and if you want to make big international movies, you have to be able to make movies that don't have anything to do with social status or politics. To limit yourself to just do these little small movies and call it black cinema itself is a mistake to me.
The story is also about the battle between Arthur and the Saxons. The Saxons were destroying everything they came across and Arthur was left when Rome was falling because this movie takes place in 400 A.D.
It's not worth it, it's not about money, especially when you're dealing with a culture. It should be about elevating the idea of what we are and who we are as people in the cinema, and that kind of stuff keeps dragging us back down.
The challenge for a director - and I think a lot of directors feel the same way - is that today we have to put on a producer's hat, too. Meaning, you have to sometimes think of it being 'business show,' not just 'show business.'
If you win, if you make money. If you do quality work, then other people of color, whatever color that is, can get in the door.
But I like to go to movies with my son because it's still fun; it reminds me of why I make movies.
I've become friends with Michael Mann and Oliver Stone; I've seen those guys work and that was great to see.
I take them seriously but I try not to read them. I take them personally, that's why I don't read them. I think people are lying when they say they don't care, that's not true. I take them personally.
I believe in God, absolutely.
I don't understand why we give up genres, and the Western is a great genre. It's a part of the rich history of cinema and who we are as we've evolved as people, as a community.
I only pay to take my son to the movies, because most of the time I only watch European movies, independent movies, or screen them privately. But I like to go to movies with my son because it's still fun; it reminds me of why I make movies.
'Cause movies are human drama, that's it.
You don't just have to see superhero movies. Ultimately, those movies are westerns - superheroes are good guys fighting bad guys in a landscape. In westerns, that divide couldn't be any more clear, but the only superpower you have is that you're a quicker shot than the other guy.
It's a dumb question, because I don't look at things as a black director, just as a director, so ask me as a director first and we can segue into the colour thing later.
Some men don't gel when it comes to work - you have different work ethics, different opinions, different points of views, different methods of filmmaking - and we didn't gel.
My responsibility is, I'm always trying to look for new people of color or even artistic people who need a chance.
I like the platform to show your art and everything that goes along with that. To show your voice and hopefully find films that are more politically driven, films that maybe inspire.
The simple answer is I'd just be a guy trying to feed my family, like everybody else. The complicated answer is, I think I'd be in some sort of military or government world of some sort.
We talk about how hard it is now. But if we look back at the '60s, we actually had a president that was assassinated. We had riots, we had Vietnam, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, the FBI, and the Black Panther war. There was so much happening at the time where it felt like America was coming apart at the seams.
I don't know, you know, when I look at it now, I don't know what in the world made me think I could become a director. I really don't.
I like the opportunity to make films.
It's a hard line to walk, man. Cause you know you want to make this movie, you want to make it dark and real, you want to show all this stuff but unfortunately you can't always do that.
If you are wearing the right jersey, people rallying in around you, and hugging each other when you win, and there's so much love and excitement when you're together. And then people seem to walk away, take their jerseys off, and start focusing on the color of your skin. It didn't matter for that couple hours at the game - why does it matter now?
Cinema Paradiso, because it reminds me of why I make movies, the magic of movies, the romance of movies.
Bruce Willis. Pain in my ass, no problem about that. We just didn't get along. We got along off camera, but shooting we just didn't get along.
I like making movies.
I don't know if Prince even really paid attention to time. The moment of creativity is the moment, and you go at that moment.
What I learned is, don't forget who you are, because that's what's going to make you a filmmaker.
I grew up on the East Coast, and we always used to say, 'Go get your hustle on,' whether it was playing sports or making money. You do what you have to do to do what you want to do.
I think that the dialogue between police officers and the black community has to get better, but not better in a way where, 'Oh, let's talk about it when something horrible happens.' The dialogue has to be going on consistently, every day.
Anyone who's done their homework knows that the West was a pretty rough-and-tumble place. People from all over the world were there - and when you were there, you had to be tough as nails.
I think men under pressure - I mean, that's what brings out the worst and the best of us. I like to explore that quite a bit in my characters because I don't see a lot of it on the screen that moved me like the films that I grew up with - that are honest, at least, about honest emotions and honest heroism.
People in Hollywood go home to their wives and children who look like they do. If you're in that position, your natural thought pattern is sometimes to think, 'Superman, oh yeah he's white.' You can't get mad at somebody for doing that. It's the world they live in and for some, they only live in that bubble.
Denzel's all about the work. He's all about the acting. He's an actor. He'll tell you himself, 'I'm not a movie star, celebrity, something else. I'm an actor.' He steps on a set, that's what he is, and that's what he gives you. He gives his heart.