Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
The expected vertical line of Ikiru's narrative breaks when Kurosawa does a flash-forward in the middle of the film.
'Ikiru' is existential but with a lot of tenderness.
Irony became the head that bit its tail and then there is no way out.
I do think that the emotional weight of 'Biutiful' has blinded some viewers to the beauty and complexity of the film.
Yes, I am a Mexican, and I have a past and a culture. But what matters is the film itself, not where it was financed or cast.
You have kids studying master class visual arts who are pushed to make films that will be successful economically; that's what they focus on. So they work for corporate interest instead of artistic expression.
It's more enjoyable for me to know that life is finite. Knowing that, I would like to go to a party. When you get to the holidays, if you think that the holidays will be forever, you just take it for granted. But, if you know that you have just three days at the beach, you will be so happy to be there every day.
My mom had very low expectations for me, and she really had a point. I was a big problem at seventeen. If I had a kid like me, I would have those same expectations.
Freedom comes with a lot of responsibility. When you are by yourself, you have to develop a third eye.
Time starts out as a notion. But after you turn fifty, time is not a notion anymore but a fact that you start feeling clearly, and in a way, it pushes you to become present in the present.
I'm very curious, I guess, as a human being.
As a Third World citizen, I always feel that I need to express my point of view. Sometimes the points of view of Third World countries are never expressed. We don't have that possibility, sometimes, to spread what we feel and how we see things.
I think that my films are basically family stories, beyond the fact that they are global and have political and social commentary.
I think we are defined as human beings through our families, no matter what kind of family - through our relationships with parents, brothers and sisters.
I began to learn about the camera and the actors. That gave me a lot of the skills. At the same time, advertising gives you a lot of vices, for example, an obsession for a superficial look, but at the same time, it gives you the capacity to synthesize the story - tell a story in one minute.
It's hard for me to work for somebody else. I can work with someone, but not for someone.
I know how to work with people. I've worked with the same people for 10 years. I'm not that kind of auteur. I hear ideas.
When you have something that is bothering you, and then you articulate, take the time to really express it and see it clearly, to recognize. To acknowledge that is already a liberating energy.
In hotels, every time I make a reservation and they never find my name, they never can pronounce it; it's so long, and sometimes they confuse.
For the actors, the talent is to serve the demands that I ask of them, to do it with naturality and truth, and to be honest when we were terrified.
To shoot a conventional film means that you are always covering yourself. You are putting nets and, in a way, letting bad decisions take over.
I learned with 'Birdman' that it's liberating when you just lose yourself and go after something that terrifies you.
I think bad movies are made around the world, not just in Hollywood. There are as many bad art films in the whole world as there are bad commercial films.
Fear of the unknown is a great creative partner.
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.
Nowadays, a critic has to watch 700, 800 films a year, and I know through experience, being a juror in prestigious film festivals where supposedly the best films are arriving, from twenty films maybe you see two that are good, one that is so-so, and one that is extraordinary. And the other sixteen are terrible.
When I have been exposed to so many films that are so bad, my soul gets crushed. I just feel intoxicated.
I think the most experimental way to a film is to tell the story the traditional way, because everyone is doing the other thing.
We are the only alive creatures that are mortals; the animals are immortal, which is why they live stupidly. We are the only creatures that know that we will die, but that is a gift. It's important because we know we have to take advantage and squeeze life and understand why we're here in the first place.
I think that people would like to, at all times, reject death and disease with technology.
3D is the way we experience life.
There was so much fear after 9/11, and that fear caused people to make the wrong decisions.
Americans easily forget that the air they breathe is the same as those in Europe or Africa or Asia; it's the same air as Jesus breathed. I would like them to remember that connection.
I've never done a period piece or a comedy, and that could be something truly different for me.
The way America sees Mexico, if they have any sense of it, is like Taco Bell. Our countries are neighbors, and the only hard food to get in America is true Mexican. It's impossible to find, even in L.A. Why is that?
I'm neurotic. I complain all the time. I'm a workaholic. And I'm never satisfied.
Too much knowledge and analysis can be paralysis.
It's harder to make real audio than special effects audio.
I like so many different directors: Scorsese, Coppola, Cassavetes, Jarmusch, Gus van Sant, Woody Allen and the greats like Fellini, Bergman, Tarkovsky and among current filmmakers von Trier, Ang Lee, Wong Kar-wai.
'Amores Perros' is rock, '21 Grams' is jazz, 'Babel' is an opera, and 'Biutiful' is a requiem.
We have always existed in different forms - carbon, oxygen, water, heat. Maybe Heaven is this brief period when the elements realize they're alive.
I think we are all connected in this world.
To direct actors is difficult. To direct actors in another language is more difficult, but directing non-actors in another language is one of the craziest things that I have done and one of the most rewarding experiences I have had.
Millions of Mexicans leave their kids in order to take care of other kids. That's a very painful thing.
I can be unbearable sometimes asking for so many takes.
If you stretch tragedy, it will always become comedy.
I'm usually very critical of myself.
It's not anthrax or terrorism or AIDS that is the worst ill in our world: The most horrible disease in the world is hate.
I learned there are ways to approach life. You can never change the events, but you can change the way you approach them.