Robert Benton - biography

“Like De Niro, Meryl Streep has no limits.”

“My education was an education by movies.”

“Movies without meaningful dialogue play well all over the world.  The Apostle is probably the best movie of the year, but it won’t do squat in Korea.”

“My next film is always shaped by the last one...  by the things I feel I didn’t get right, or the things I like and want to try to develop further, but it always comes out of the last picture.”

“I was dyslexic before anybody knew what dyslexia was.  I was called ‘slow’.  It’s an awful feeling to think of yourself as ‘slow’ - it’s horrible.”

“I’d like to know what law is it that says that a woman is a better parent, simply by virtue of her sex.”

“In America, people rarely stay in the town where they grew up, rarely stay in close proximity to their parents throughout their lives.  You rarely find parents in their old age being taken care of by their children.”

“Twilight is about getting older and relationships - not about a murder mystery.  It’s about love when you reach a certain age; nothing is in primary colors.”

Robert Benton directed the following films:
Bad Company (1972)
The Late Show (1977)
Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
Still of the Night (1982)
Places in the Heart (1984)
Nadine (1987)
Billy Bathgate (1991)
Nobody’s Fool (1994)
Twilight (1998)
The Human Stain (2003)
Feast of Love (2007)


Robert Benton contributed to the screenplay for the following films:
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
What’s Up, Doc? (1972)
Bad Company (1972)
The Late Show (1977)
Superman (1978)
Still of the Night (1982)
Places in the Heart (1984)
Nadine (1987)
Nobody’s Fool (1994)
Twilight (1998)
The Ice Harvest (2005)