Philip Kaufman
Philip Kaufman
Philip Kaufmanis an American film director and screenwriter who has directed fifteen films over a career spanning more than five decades. He has been described as a "maverick" and an "iconoclast," notable for his versatility and independence. He is considered an "auteur", whose films have always expressed his personal vision.:1...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth23 October 1936
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
Philip Kaufman quotes about
I'm interested in stories about people as we knew them in the near-recent future.
Certainly since Freudian times, we all recognize that there is something called the libido, and that there are various ways of inspiring it.
I don't think we soft-pedal anything. These stories are pretty extreme, but the way we're telling them makes them somewhat more humorous.
On the other hand, I think the ratings system needs some reworking. I don't think this is a movie parents should bring underage children to.
Similarly, the Marquis is presented in this film as someone who would disturb the status quo and therefore must be kept imprisoned.
That's a little homage in a way to that and also to create that sort of creepy atmosphere that Hitchcock did. Vertigo was one of his great movies that was shot right here in The City and it's about a woman and the psychological twists and so forth.
This one, even though it called for San Francisco, I think they wanted to initially shoot part of the film up here, you know get the exteriors and then go back to L.A. We really fought to get it up here and I think Paramount was really pleased.
And I liked this extreme character of de Sade.
The danger is not so much in the economic structure of a society but in its intellectual structure.
I shot a lot of close-ups on this movie 'cause there's like a dual mystery, she's searching through her haunted past to find some truth and she's also following an external mystery where she comes to think she might be the killer.
It just seemed to me to be a great story, set back in its time but something that seemed to have relevance for our time. Now that the film is coming out, it looks like we're back in another time where repression of expression is all the rage.
Nowadays they either want to move the film to Canada or in some cases they go to Prague or Romania or they want to keep 'em down in L.A.
What's really interesting about that is that a lot of these words that were incendiary in their time now seem almost harmless and laughable, because they have this archaic quality.
Making movies can be a creative exciting project for director and rest of staff.