Peter Weir Quotes on Movies (7 Quotes)

National film industries tend to move in cycles. In Australia right now, we're on a high, a feeling of potential, which as yet shows no sign of flagging. But the word "industry" is misleading. A small national cinema has no industry in the Hollywood sense.

It's a brilliant and intriguing idea, and the moment I read the script, I knew it was my next film. I started working on it back in '95,

At one point, I got so obsessive with the theme that I thought we actually should conceal all the cameras from Jim and the other actors,

Why build New York Why build something that's known instead of having an idealized setting Nevertheless, the script absolutely intrigued me. It was most untypical of Hollywood.

Normally as a director, you do look at other films and things that are relevant. But with this film, it became impossible because I became so aware of the camera placement.

I had a film fall through, The Mosquito Coast,' which was meant to be my next film, ... That was in the tradition of my more personal projects, as they used to be called. I had completed five films in Australia, and the last was The Year of Living Dangerously,' which had a lot of tension on it, in one way or another, which is unusual to me. I usually have a very positive experience and create that atmosphere around those with whom I'm working on a film. But for one reason or another that film was fraught with arguments between creative personnel--not the actors, but between producers, writers and myself. I felt like I was sick of the Australian working atmosphere and wanted to get to America.

I was struck by the Amish aspect of the film, ... As my first American film, I could go to a country within a country, and that would seem to me a better landing spot for me, as an English-speaking foreign director. I don't think I would have done it if, instead of the Amish community, it had been the Italian community in New York. I would have felt too inhibited and thought that the territory of other filmmakers.