Alan Parker quotes:

Rain is also very difficult to film, particularly in Ireland because it's quite fine, so fine that the Irish don't even acknowledge that it exists.

Personally I am very much against the death penalty for several reasons.

I always argued against the auteur theory; films are a collaborative art form. I've had some fantastically good people help me make the movies.

Period recreation is very difficult unless you make a black-and-white movie.

Have a go. Anybody can do it.

A great movie evolves when everybody has the same vision in their heads.

Film-making is a physically hard job.

It doesn't matter what the technology is - no one will watch a Peter Greenaway film anyway.

Well, if you ask any filmmaker how they got into it, everyone came a different route. Ive never actually watched another director work.

I'm always afraid someone's going to tap me on the shoulder one day and say, 'Back to North London'.

A lot of directors prefer the solitude of the editing process, but I revel in the craziness of what a film set is.

I turn on the TV sometimes, start watching something and think: 'This seems quite good, a bit familiar.' Then I realise... It's one of my movies. It's a pretty odd feeling.

I've always been completely autocratic. I've never learned to be diplomatic or democratic.

I'm a pluralist. I've always argued that as many different films as possible should be made.

I was once described by one of my critics as an aesthetic fascist.

If you'd been where I'd been... if you'd seen the things I'd seen!... you... you'd be me... Or someone following me around...

The films that I do tend to polarise people's views.

Most directors have little lists in their heads of people they really want to work with.

Making a film is so hard that if you don't have your main actors going along with the ride with the rest of the crew it can make your life very difficult.