No, I only like whether I like the story or not, essentially see something in it that isn't completely there.
— Vincente Minnelli
But I think musicals are going to have to deal with important subjects.
I had given up the theater and everything propelled me into entertainment. And I didn't resist it.
I made three films with Douglas, two with Charles Boyer.
Color can do anything that black-and-white can.
I always liked the Van Gogh story because I was terribly involved in that.
Cedric Gibbons was the grand cardinal of the art department.
In the Thirties, when I was in New York, I did the first surrealistic ballet in a show of mine.
I allow an area for improvisation because the chemical things actors bring to stories make it not work.
I seem to be drawn to things that actually happen.
That's what I think musicals will come to. No backstage stories, nothing of that sort.
I see wonderful films by Bertolucci, Visconti, and Fellini.
I started out to be a painter and was born into the theater.
I've worked with an awful lot of people. Katy Hepburn, Spencer Tracy.
I use colors to bring fine points of story and character.
But I went down to Venezuela and spend a few weeks going through jungles. It's fantastic looking.
The Pirate is surrealism and so, in a curious way, is Father of the Bride.
But surrealism is present in most of my pictures.
It's always the story that interests me.
I always have coffee without sugar, you know. Just cream.
West Side Story was terribly important because of the style of the dancing and the gangs of New York.
American films are terribly popular all over the world and American movie stars are terribly important. I don't know why.
Nowadays the audience has changed. No one can anticipate the audience.
If anybody reads a story in a magazine or book, different pictures compete in their minds.
We shot that in all the real places where Van Gogh worked.
I learn new things all the time.
Dali was the great painter then and surrealism was a way of life.
Fortunately, John Houseman is a marvelous writer and he sat in on so many story conferences. He worked with Welles, you know, and he's a marvelous man.
Designing Woman was written for the screen.
It's the story that counts.
