Orson Welles Quotes

63 Sourced Quotes

One should make movies innocently — the way Adam and Eve named the animals, their first day in the garden…Learn from your own interior vision of things, as if there had never been a D. W. Griffith, or a Eisenstein, or a [John] Ford, or a [Jean] Renoir, or anybody.

Orson Welles
As for my style, for my vision of the cinema, editing is not simply one aspect; it's the aspect.

Orson Welles
You don't know what I'm up against. Because it's full of, of, of things that are only correct because they're grammatical, but they're tough on the ear, you see. This is a very wearying one. It's unpleasant to read. Unrewarding. "Because Findus freeze the cod at sea, and then add a crumb-crisp" Ooh, "crumb-crisp coating." Ahh, that's tough, "crumb-crisp coating." I think, no, because of the way it's written, you need to break it up, because it's not, it's not as conversationally written.

Orson Welles
What's happening now is what happened before, and often what's going to happen again sometime or other.

Orson Welles
The people who've done well within the [Hollywood] system are the people whose instincts, whose desires [are in natural alignement with those of the producers] — who want to make the kind of movies that producers want to produce. People who don't succeed — people who've had long, bad times; like [Jean] Renoir, for example, who I think was the best director, ever — are the people who didn't want to make the kind of pictures that producers want to make. Producers didn't want to make a Renoir picture, even if it was a success.

Orson Welles
The director is simply the audience. So the terrible burden of the director is to take the place of that yawning vacuum, to be the audience and to select from what happens during the day which movement shall be a disaster and which a gala night. His job is to preside over accidents.

Orson Welles
One shouldn't ever be conscious of the author as lecturer. When social or moral points are too heavily stressed, I always get uncomfortable.

Orson Welles
In my opinion, there are two things that can absolutely not be carried to the screen: the realistic presentation of the sexual act and praying to God.

Orson Welles
Ladies and gentlemen, I have a grave announcement to make. Incredible as it may seem, strange beings who landed in New Jersey tonight are the vanguard of an invading army from Mars.

Orson Welles
I hate it when people pray on the screen. It's not because I hate praying, but whenever I see an actor fold his hands and look up in the spotlight, I'm lost. There's only one other thing in the movies I hate as much, and that's sex. You just can't get in bed or pray to God and convince me on the screen.

Orson Welles
On the RKO studio:
This is the biggest electric train set any boy ever had.

Orson Welles
A long-playing full shot is what always separates the men from the boys. Anybody can make movies with a pair of scissors and a two-inch lens.

Orson Welles
I'm never certain of a performance - my own or the other actors' - or the script or anything... But to me it seems there's only one place in the world the camera can be, and the decision usually comes immediately.

Orson Welles