A biography for Derek Cianfrancehasn’t been written yet.
“I've always thought that guns are a cowardly tool in the hands of men and women trying to solve problems with each other. And cowardly in the hands of filmmakers. It's taken so lightly in films.”
“To me, discomfort is a gift in the films that I'm making.”
“Lars Ulrich, he was my hero growing up. I wanted to be like him. I played the drums.”
“When I cast someone in a movie, I have to absolutely trust who they are as a human being. Trust is the intangible of moviemaking.”
“I feel like the job of an artist is to confront their own darkness and their own demons and fears. And I want to make movies that feel human up on the screen. I don't really relate to dudes wearing spandex and capes.”
“One of the bad things about being a filmmaker, about being me, is I can hardly read a book anymore because every time I read something, I have a poaching mentality, like, 'Oh, can this be a movie?'”
“When we make these movies, you sign up for an experience. It's not just, 'Action! Cut!' There's not that safety in it. It's kind of a dangerous place to be. I mean, it is safe, but it gets personal. It's no longer about saying the lines. It's about really having an experience.”
“With each character in a movie, I'm looking for a human being. I'm looking for a person. And to me, I'm looking for a person that's full of strengths and weaknesses, a person that's full of successes and failures, a person that's full of joy and sorrow. I'm interested in people that are human beings that are alive.”
“I think people need fantasy, but I think they also need to know that they're not being lied to. I think sometimes the fantasy can betray people and become more difficult for people's lives than just truth. I can't stand delusion. Delusion makes me sick.”
“I feel similar to a lot of people. I don't feel unique. So what I'm trying to do in my films is provide something for people like me, but also a collection of scenes that instigate.”
“As a parent myself, I can appreciate the MPAA and what they're supposed to do, but what happens with NC-17 is that the MPAA is basically taking away the rights of parents. They're basically telling me that I can't show my kids this movie if I decide they can see it.”
“There's this thing in Hollywood about the sympathetic character and likability. I've never understood that because the people I love most in my life are not likable all the time. My wife is not always likable. I'm certainly not always likable. My dad is not always likable. We're human beings.”
“When people think of biblical movies, they imagine sweeping epics like 'The Ten Commandments.' But 'The Gospel According to St. Matthew' is essentially a documentary about Jesus. It made me aware of how real life and personal experience can create more breathtaking, sensitive cinema than more sophisticated techniques.”
“I love people that work with passion and love. When you make choices that way, there's reverberations, consequences. That's what I'm interested in, that echo, that ripple of choice.”
“From making documentaries all these years, it doesn't feel right to lead someone. In narratives, I'm always trying to shoot as though it's really happening, and I trust my actors are going to make decisions that I'm going to be following. I want to follow them.”