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Anthony Minghella

Anthony Minghella Books

Film director

Anthony Minghella was a renowned British film director, born on January 6, 1954, and passed away on March 18, 2008. He was known for his unique filmmaking style and profound insights into human nature, with notable works including 'The English Patient' and 'Cold Mountain'.

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Related Quotes

“As a teenager I was obsessed with music and with writing and performing songs.”

Writing Song Teenager Performing Obsessed

Author:Anthony Minghella

“I always listen to music, my passion and vice is music, I will be denied access to heaven because of the number of CDs I own, and I have gluttony for all types and colours of music.”

Passion Heaven Numbers Type Vices Access Colour Denied Listening To Music My Passion Cds Gluttony

Author:Anthony Minghella

“I don't hold with the notion that only bad books make good movies.”

Book Notion Good Movie

Author:Anthony Minghella

“I have always believed that there is a need for life-affirming films.”

Needs Film Always Believe Affirming Life Affirming

Author:Anthony Minghella

“I was one of five very clever kids, the other kids were cleverer than I was and still are and are very achieving. The girls were always first at everything and I was always 101st!”

Firsts Stills Kids Girl Five Achieve Clever Very Clever

Author:Anthony Minghella

“Look at it this way: if you write the novel of 'Cold Mountain,' it costs exactly the same to produce and market as a novel set in a room. If you make the film, the disparity of costs is huge.”

Ifs Way Writing Looks Film Rooms Novel Produce Huge Cold Cost Mountain Disparity Cold Mountain

Author:Anthony Minghella

“My grandmother was a huge influence on me and the fact that there was this very strong, rather formidable presence of women in my life has been an enormous value.”

Has Beens Facts Values Strong Influence Huge Enormous Grandmother Very Strong My Grandmother Formidable

Author:Anthony Minghella

“No studio in Hollywood wanted 'Cold Mountain.' None. No one wanted 'Ripley,' no one wanted 'The English Patient.' That tells you there isn't really an appetite for ambitious movie-making out there.”

Wanted Cold Mountain Hollywood Patient Studios Appetite Ambitious Movie Making Cold Mountain

Author:Anthony Minghella

“Of course, like all film-makers I've been mesmerised by cinema since I was a child.”

Children Film Courses Cinema Makers

Author:Anthony Minghella

“The imaginative leap for me of writing for women is no more difficult than the one of writing for men. I've always wanted to have women well represented in the work that I've done because I've always been around them and around the way they look at the world.”

Men World Way Writing Wells Looks Done Wanted Difficult Leap Imaginative

Author:Anthony Minghella

“The only lesson to extract from any civil war is that it's pointless and futile and ugly, and that there is nothing glamorous or heroic about it. There are heroes, but the causes are never heroic.”

War Causes Hero Lessons Ugly Civil War Heroic Pointless Glamorous

Author:Anthony Minghella

“The problem with growing up in a cafe was the cafe never closed, my parents worked every day of the year from morning to night. So it was a big menagerie of kids, business and cooking!”

Years Problem Bigs Kids Night Parent Morning Growing Up Growing Cooking Cafes Days Of The Year Menagerie

Author:Anthony Minghella

“I am a writer who was able to direct the films that I write.”

Writing Able Film Direct

Author:Anthony Minghella

“Once you start to realize that a film is the sum of its editing, then editing is the thing you're always looking at.”

Film Realizing Editing

Author:Anthony Minghella

“Betrayals during war are childlike compared with our betrayals during peace.”

War Betrayal Childlike

Author:Anthony Minghella

“I want to tell stories which require something of an audience, by way of thought, argument, emotion, because I'm more often in an audience than I am a maker of films, and that's the kind of movie I want to see.”

Way Want Kind Stories Film Emotion Audience Argument Makers

Author:Anthony Minghella

“I'm interested in stories which insist on a dog fails-to-eat-dog kind of world. I hate misanthropy, want to believe that there's a possibility that we might all be redeemed, that hope deferred makes the soul sick, that our humanity is fragile, funny, common, crazy, full of the longing for love, the failure of love.”

World Want Believe Kind Soul Stories Might Hate Humanity Common Failing Crazy Dog Possibility Sick I Hate Longing Fragile Redeemed Misanthropy

Author:Anthony Minghella

“Waiting is part of writing. When I write the word 'waiting' by hand it even looks like 'writing.'”

Writing Looks Hands Waiting

Author:Anthony Minghella

“The BFI exists to celebrate all poets of world cinema, of the past and present.”

World Past Poet Celebrate Cinema Past And Present

Author:Anthony Minghella

“There's a great tradition at the BFI of giving fellowships and I thought one of the great jobs that I'd have at the BFI would be to give them out on a regular basis.”

Giving Would Be Jobs Tradition Bases Fellowship Great Job

Author:Anthony Minghella

“[Abbas Kiarostami] is a great artist and a poet. I sometimes think that if Samuel Beckett made films, he'd make them like Kiarostami makes them.”

Ifs Thinking Made Sometimes Film Artist Poet Great Art Great Artist Beckett Abba

Author:Anthony Minghella

“The feeling of not belonging, of not being entirely worthy, of being sometimes hostage to your own sensibilities. Those things speak to me very personally.”

Sometimes Feelings Speak Worthy Belonging Sensibility Hostage Not Belonging Worthy Things

Author:Anthony Minghella

“I work fitfully, in hope rather than in expectation, invent methods which last a week, and fill notebooks with tiny, illegible writing which often defies my own attempts to decipher it.”

Writing Lasts My Own Week Expectations Method Tiny Notebook Decipher

Author:Anthony Minghella

“I looked around and we were about a mile-and-a-half from land, and I thought, 'OK, I'm going to drown now.' And then I started to flail out and panic. I gradually calmed down and I got home. But the reality was that in that moment I was panicking and I feel like that to me was the clue about Ripley, that Ripley constantly finds himself out of his depth in the film and then reacts very, very badly.”

Feels Moments Home Reality Film Half Land Down And Depth Miles That Moment Panic Now And Then Clue

Author:Anthony Minghella

“The best thing about writing has been the writer's life, the sense of being expressed, the ownership of the day, the entirely specious sense of freedom we have, however slave we are to some boss or other. I wouldn't trade it for any other life.”

Writing Has Beens Trade Slave Best Things Boss Ownership Screenwriters

Author:Anthony Minghella

“I am a teller of stories. A weaver of dreams. I can dance, sing, and in the right weather I can stand on my head. I know 7 words of Latin, I have a little magic... and a trick or two. I know the proper way to meet a dragon, I can fight dirty but not fair. I once swallowed thirty oysters in a minute. I am not domestic, I am a luxury and, in that sense, necessary.”

Knows Way Littles I Can Two Stories Dream Fighting Magic Minutes Fairs Seven Tricks Weather Luxury Dirty Thirty Dragons Latin Oysters Not Fair Weavers

Author:Anthony Minghella

“I had never thought of myself as a director and found out that I was not. I am a writer who was able to direct the films that I write.”

Writing Able Film Found Directors Direct

Author:Anthony Minghella

“I never feel more myself than when I’m writing; I never enjoy any day more than a good writing day.”

Feels Writing Enjoy Good Writing

Author:Anthony Minghella

“Being a writer-director can sometimes make you incredibly blinkered.”

Sometimes Directors

Author:Anthony Minghella

“You know, you lose a lot of social skills if you’re a writer. You spend too long alone. And it’s forced me to address that.”

Ifs Knows Long Social Loses Skills Addresses Social Skills

Author:Anthony Minghella

“When I became the chair of the British Film Institute, I didn't understand how much of my time would be taken up with trying to make a case for the British Film Institute: what it's for, why it exists, why it needs its money.”

Needs Trying Would Be Film Cases Taken British My Time Chairs Institute British Film

Author:Anthony Minghella

“There's this sense of being strange, which is at the heart of every creative person. Every writer, every actor, every director knows who Ripley is. We've made careers and lives out of pretending, making things up, inhabiting other people's stories and lives. That's what I do every day. . . . The story is so audacious and subversive: a central character who behaves badly and isn't apparently caught. That intrigued me no end.”

About the Author

Born: January 6, 1954
Died: March 18, 2008
Known for: Film director
Quotes: 32

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