You hear about bombings in other countries, or numbers like "10,000 people died" - you hear that number and you think, "Well, I saw that yesterday in a film, and that didn't look so bad." Younger viewers, in particular, lose perspective on reality.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituAs a sensitive filmmaker, I think you have to really be careful in how you explore it. Not that you can't tell any story you want - I'm not calling for censorship or anything. But if you're going to have violence, I think it's important to deal with the consequences of that on a human level, not just to make people laugh.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituI just wanted to show the migrants as complex humans with flaws and weakness, with good and bad things, and show that they're parents and family men. I wanted to show them with everything, as they are.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituI respect BMW for not interfering in these projects. They're just trying to support short films with their brand, which I think is great.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituI understand when there's no money for the arts in the government, but it should maybe pressure private companies to support more filmmakers. These exhibition and distribution companies are huge, and there might be incentives for them to invest more in Mexican cinema.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituIn the United States there's not a lot of people interested in foreign language films. Every time, it's more difficult for foreign language films to survive here.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituI was aware of the possible biases you could get as a commercial director, like being too concerned about the technical aspects of the form rather than anything of substance. If you keep working in commercials, you can get trapped in a very superficial way of thinking. I always used commercials as an exercise for filmmaking, like going to the gym.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituHow can [actors] learn their lines and be honest in front of 30 people and all the lights? It makes me cry sometimes. I can't understand how they can be joking with me 30 seconds before, and 40 seconds later they're giving me all this incredible feeling.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituWhen I went to university, I finally got exposed to European films, and they had a strong impact on me. I felt those films had a lot of things to say that weren't getting expressed in the films I was used to seeing.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituI always think politicians and even my dentist have more egos than actors.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituI made commercials for corporations like Volkswagen and Coca-Cola, but I was always the one to write them, too, which was a very good exercise, because I learned to tell little stories.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituIt's more enjoyable for me to know that life is finite. Knowing that, I would like to go to a party.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituI think movies in general should have more respect for the audience than they do. Too many films are afraid to confuse people, so all the information is given to them right away, and there's nothing left for the film to do. It ruins many stories, because everything becomes obvious and predictable. I want my films to engage people more and make them more actively involved in the story.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituWhen 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.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituI saw what I could [in Mexico City], but we rarely got anything other than big, mainstream American films.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituWhen people laugh and applaud as characters are killing each other, and you never see the body that's lying there, or you never see the family that suffers, then it turns into a cool thing to do, like a videogame. Then, when you watch the news and see that 15 soldiers were killed, you start to see them as just numbers, material, information, images. We lose the real weight and real value of one simple human life.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituAll my films have always been released in the autumn, maybe because they're more melancholy to people.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituI think the arts should get big support, but my country has a lot of needs more important than film. Medication, education, food... The poverty is overwhelming. There are simply more important things to be attended to.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituActually, 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. On the last trip, I stayed in Europe for one year with $1,000, working everywhere I could, doing everything. Those years shaped me a lot and taught me the value of exploring different things.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituIn the creative process, my ego has always been a huge tyrant ... a dictator and kind of rude and very misleading, because sometimes when I'm doing something, I say, "This is great! This is fantastic! Very genius!" And 20 minutes later, I feel like a dead jellyfish. "You are a stupid a**hole. This is a piece of sh*t. Nobody will care about it."
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituEvery time that I'm challenged with a film I think that I haven't learned anything, that every film is different and that every thing that I have learned is useless in this new adventure.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituI was a street kid, basically. But 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.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituI didn't have a normal academic career. I never studied cinema. I learned from life.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituReally, I'm a neurotic perfectionist. Every single word in the script is the one that I want.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituI think every beautiful tale in the world hides the truth and reveals it little by little.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituMy country has been wracked with violence for a long time. Just to see all the violence on the news makes you sick. It's true that violence is in our nature, but I try to explore deeply where it comes from and where it goes and what it creates. Not in a moralistic or preachy way, but just to observe the real consequences of violence in a human being or in a society.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituLife and death are illusions. We are in a constant state of transformation.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituThe actors make the film. They're the ones that take this theoretical movie that's in your head and make it real. The success of a film is entirely on their shoulders. I admire them, because acting is such a difficult thing to do, and I personally can't understand it.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituI like to make films, but the only reason I do is because I'm a very bad musician.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituI've listened to music all my life. I've always felt that music tells more stories sometimes than films, with more possibilities. Every time you listen to them, songs bring different images and moods - depending on where you are in your life, you can listen to a song and it means something different.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituThere's nothing better than being in a film that translates to audiences and makes people think and feel good and walk away with great revelations in their own life of some kind. But when the process and the experience and the fun of that matches, it's a good feeling.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituOf course, there's always one theater that shows some kind of European film. Now, fortunately, you have DVDs, so it's possible to get anything you want within a few hours. In those days, it was virtually impossible to get Italian films, or German films, or whatever. So I grew up with very standard, mainstream films.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituI remember, the first time I saw a [Andrei] Tarkovsky film, I was shocked by it. I didn't know what to do. I was fascinated, because suddenly I realized that film could have so many more layers to it than what I had imagined before. Then others, like Kurosawa and Fellini, were like a new discovery for me, another country.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituMaybe next year the government might impose some immigration rules on the academy. Two Mexicans in a row is suspicious. [On Mexican immigrants in the US] I hope they can be treated with respect of the ones who came before and built this incredible immigrant nation.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituThe 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?
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituMexico City is very different now than when I grew up, but I was in the streets all the time - though I was born to a middle-class neighborhood where there weren't a lot of gangs and things. I was always comfortable.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituFor me, it's not about masochism to talk about death. For me, it's about observing life through death, from the last point of it.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituI hate superficial violence. It's shallow and stupid, and the impact on the audience is really bad.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu