Top 28 Quotes by Douglas Sirk

If I can say one thing for my pictures, it is a certain craftsmanship. A thought which has gone into every angle. There is nothing there without an optical reason.

Your characters have to remain innocent of what your picture is after.

There arose a belief in style - and in banality. Banality encompassed politics, too, because it was a common belief that politics were not worthy of art.

So slowly in my mind formed the idea of melodrama, a form I found to perfection in American pictures. They were naive, they were that something completely different. They were completely Art-less.

Intellectualism came very late to America. That's why Americans are so proud of it. I found very few real intellectuals in America. But there are so many pseudo-intellectuals.

The war was the end of an era, in art as well. And we were trying to create a new philosophy.

I worked for UFA as a set designer, you know.

Your camera is the best critic there is. Critics never see as much as the camera does. It is more perceptive than the human eye.

My idea at this time, which was slowly developing, was to create a comedie humaine with little people, average people - samples from every period in American life.

Throughout my pictures I employ a lighting which is not naturalistic.