Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Cinema is a mirror by which we often see ourselves.
As a city, it is always compelling. But every day in Mexico City, I give thanks that I am alive.
Cinema is universal, beyond flags and borders and passports.
I have dark skin. My nickname is El Negro. They call me El Negro in Mexico because even in my country, the dark skin is evidence of Indian blood, a sign that one technically belongs to a third class. Even my grandmother had some kind of differentiation with me, because I was darker than my siblings.
I have a notebook, and I know what decisions will be made in pre-production. Everything is pre-determined in the pre-production period. I visually design the whole thing, and I know when things will happen.
In a world where irony reigns, where you have to separate, protect and laugh at anything that is honest or has an emotional charge, I bet for catharsis. I like to invest emotionally in things. And catharsis, when it touches the emotional vein, can open the doors of even those who protect themselves.
'Biutiful' is not about death. It's about life. It's a hymn to life.
To question your own process is a necessity. If you don't question yourself, it's impossible to improve.
My cinema is an extension of myself. A sort of life-testimony of my vital experience, with my few virtues and my numerous limitations.
Good directors don't answer questions with their work. They generate debate and create discussion.
When I'm working, I'm insufferable because I get stuck with myself, and suddenly I become obsessive, thinking about how to make something better.
Filmmaking can give you everything, but at the same time, it can take everything from you.
Actors are exposed in a way that nobody else can understand. They are subject to the likes and dislikes of people their entire life, no matter how successful they are. At the same time, in order to be liked, you have to not be yourself. So it's a very complicated human exercise - an alchemy that I have never understood.
The creative process is mysterious; a conversation, a ride in the car, or a melody can trigger something.
When you live in a city, as I do, where violence is really in the streets, and people die every day, there's nothing funny about it.
Really, Mexico City has always been this big, complex monster of a city that has always had real problems and needs, and I've always found my way through it in different ways.
'Babel' is about the point of view of others. It literally includes points of views as experienced from the other side. It is not about a hero. It is not about only one country. It is a prism that allows us to see the same reality from different angles.
Cannes or any other major festival is basically an animal in its own nature, creating very specific perceptions of films in a moment.
I love Eric Clapton.
When we are looking for validation, that will never satisfy us. When we are looking for affection, for love, a little bit of that will be enough to be complete.
Many Mexican directors are scared to shoot in Mexico City, which is why there are many stories in Mexican cinema about little rural towns, or set a hundred years ago.
I have always said that innocence is much more powerful than experience.
Two words guided the making of 'Babel' for me: 'dignity' and 'compassion.' These things are normally forgotten in the making of a lot of films. Normally there is not dignity because the poor and dispossessed in a place like Morocco are portrayed as mere victims, or the Japanese are portrayed as cartoon figures with no humanity.
Directing non-actors is difficult. Directing actors in a foreign language is even more difficult. Directing non-actors in a language that you yourself don't understand is the craziest thing you can possibly think of.
I'm telling the same story in every film.
I think that in order to be a film director, one has to be a warrior who shouldn't be defeated by the daily onslaught of problems.
Everybody is looking for validation, no matter who you are, and I think that's a need of the human condition - to look for affection or recognition or validation.
I realized - and I am probably the last person in the world to realize this - that we live our lives with no editing.
From the time we open our eyes, we live in a Steadicam form, and the only editing is when we talk about our lives or remember things.
I'm scared of horses, and I don't know how to shoot them, but that's what excites me. After 40 years old, if you don't do some things that really terrify you, I don't think they're worth doing.
I think there's nothing wrong with being fixated on superheroes when you are 7 years old, but I think there's a disease in not growing up.
To become a celebrity, a name - and I've actually met some that speak of themselves in the third person - it's scary. They become an object, not a human, complex, questioning thing where the cells are always changing.
I don't know if I have a career or not, or where it ends or it begins. I have been working, doing what I do for a long time. But my creative process has always been so tortuous.
'Birdman' came from a very beautiful side of me, from a part of honesty and surrender about things.
All of us want something in life, all of us have flaws, and all of us have strengths. So, I always try to discover those things in a character and then try to expose it in one way or another.
I have never directed anything for the stage. I studied for three years in the theater, and it was a very, very scary experience to direct live, being so vulnerable without the possibility to control things, to be so exposed.
When you have a fresh point of view that comes from the right side of the heart, it's just so valuable. You can take it or not take it, but just that perspective can give you a lot of strength or make you reflect on a lot of things.
I'm an intense person. My own vision of life has always been heavy.
We have these ambitions that are very hard to accomplish because life puts us in our place. We have this battle with mediocrity.
Everyone's terrified of being mediocre. Everyone wants to be special.
When you are shooting in a conventional way, you put nets around yourself. It's very hard to fall and hit the ground. You can always manipulate things to make it not embarrassing. If the scene is a little bit bad, you can polish it or even take it out. You can hide your mistakes.
I think that when we wrestle with death... we start fearing life, because then we come to terms with something that is inevitable.
Irony is a great tool to deal with things. It's an intellectualization, a way to go above things, which can work.
If you stretch tragedy, it will always become comedy. That's the comedy that I like.
It's famous that comedians have a very dark personal state of mind. I think, in my case, it's the same. The only way to get deep is to have a balance, or a counterbalance.
I am not a depressive person at all, but I reflect a lot on my life, and life in general, from the perspective of death.
You can better embrace life, you can enjoy it more, when you are conscious that it will end. You bite life.
I have been very lucky to have final cut in all my films; everything that is wrong in them is my fault.
When I think about growing up, I feel most affected by two travels that I made working in cargo boats when I was 16 and 18. One of them crossed through the Mississippi and Baton Rouge and Mobile, Alabama, and another went all the way to Europe.
I didn't have a normal academic career. I never studied cinema. I learned from life.