Jeff Nichols
10 quotes
Biography
Jeffrey Ryan Nichols is an American filmmaker, director, screenwriter, and producer. His films are characterized by their Southern United States backdrop and Americana ambience, slice-of-life depictions of rural and working class characters and the study of their struggles, American masculinity, and the cultural clash between traditionalism and modernism.
"'Take Shelter' is a tough movie because there's no humor in it, so there's really no way to judge how you're doing - whether people are still with you or not."
"I think when you're talking about marriage equality and race, people very quickly start to get into their political corners: their ideology comes to the forefront, and they get into this platform argument that they're used to making, which really doesn't have anything to do with the day-to-day basics of what is being talked about."
"The funny thing about 'Take Shelter' is that a lot of people talk about how it was allegory for the economy and things that were to happen. And that was so on the nose in the movie for me. I was like, 'That's obvious.' It's the other stuff about marriage and commitment and those other things that I spent the most time thinking about."
"Marriage isn't about a collection of scenes over ten years of two people telling each other that they love each other. It's about commitment."
"If I can drive down the road in my car and listen to XM satellite, and when a song gets beamed into my car, it can tell me who wrote the song and what the damn lyrics are, why, when you broadcast a digital signal of a film, can't it speak to your television to set up a list of settings to show the film in the way that it was meant to be shown?"
"The films that have influenced me most are: 'The Hustler', 'Badlands', 'Hud', 'Tender Mercies', 'Cool Hand Luke', 'A Perfect World', and 'Laurence of Arabia'. I also really like 'Fletch'. I feel like all of these films reached an honest place in regard to the human condition while also stringing together really entertaining stories."
"We have a problem with dealing with race in our country. We have a problem with dealing with marriage equality and equality in general. These are complex, divisive issues in our society, and I think that the only way we further this conversation is to take them down to a very human scale."
"It takes people being alone in front of the computer at three in the morning to write opinions about movies, apparently."
"Marriage is tough. I can tell my wife all day long that I love her, but it doesn't mean anything if you don't show that."
"I am not going to approve the home-screening format for my film just carte blanche in lieu of a theatrical screening when I cannot trust that it will ever be seen in the format that it's intended to be."