Michel Gondry Quotes
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Since I was a kid, I've liked to see how things are done. Sometimes when you see how things are done, it's like watching a 'making of' within the story. You see the physical aspect, the construction of things.
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I'm not against the technology at all, I just don't like to use it if it's just to mimic what you can do with traditional methods.
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I have a video store next to my apartment in Paris, and they still have most of their videos on VHS. A lot of people think Be Kind Rewind is set in the past because they just wipe this reality out of their head, but it is true that there are a lot of movies that don't exist on DVD. But I'm not like a big movie buff.
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My father had a Super 8 camera when I was a kid and sometimes he would use it. I did some animation with it. I did a lot of flipbooks.
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People always say there is competition in nature, but I think that because we are human, it's not only competition. Because we are human we have something other than competition - sharing, helping others, or being oneself. Competition is really kind of ugly.
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The first dolly track was somebody who had the idea to put the camera on a boat on a canal. So the boat would move very slowly but steadily. So they would see all that surrounds you and you'd see the landscape changing slowly. So that was the first time.
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In my opinion, it's more interesting to see magic happening in a world that feels grounded. If the world is already crazy, then anything can happen. So it's better to start with something real.
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The problem is, with a lot of children's films, they are very commercial.
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I don't thrive on control. I'm not looking for control. I think I get better results when I don't control things.
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I think some people feel that if you are going to have 3D, then you have to shoot in 3D, but they shoot 3D, so of course they're going to say 'my way of doing a film is better.' I'm not telling anyone how they should do their film, so why should anyone tell me how I should do mine?
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I'm not judging the films. People make these connections through a film, or because they know them. But the fact that they erase them and have to start from scratch, I think that's an important point. A lot of kids, when they have a camera, have tended to do remakes of existing films. You have a lot of kids that make Star Wars. And I think that's creativity, but not as much creativity as starting from scratch.
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You can't feel sorry for a scene. If the movie works without the scene, then you don't need the scene.
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If you're not grown up enough to understand that a trailer is not done by the director, then fine. Judge the movie from the trailer.
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Michael Jackson will always be my favorite pop musician; he was for years and years until his death, which was horrible to me. So I like pop culture. But to me, even if it's popular, there is a quality in the music you have to be able to appreciate.
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I think it's a problem when journalists have the title of their article before they do the interview, because it biases the way they conduct it.
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That's what the internet is: it's like bombarding your eyeballs with these myriad blinking colour lights. It's like trying to watch a movie on your phone in the middle of Times Square.
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I like actors who just are who they are, with a little bit of qualification to adapt to their character. But mostly they just use their own personality to embody the character.
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I like to use a bit of chaos when I shoot. I think it may be something from the way I shot my first film - I was very scared, of course, and I prepared everything, I wanted to make sure that the characters did the right thing at the right time on the storyboard. But then I realised that in life, there is so much more than what you can predict or write in advance, that when you shoot the story, it's good to leave some gaps where you lose control. I think this combination of chaos and organisation gives a kind of quality.
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I'm attracted to working with comedians because they don't have that stars' idea of what a hero should be. The downside is they're always addressing the camera too much.
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I find it particularly shocking that people work all week long, and then on the weekend they give their money to another big corporation. I remember reading an interview with Walt Disney, and he said how he got the idea to create Disney World. He saw his grandson playing in the sand in a little park, and he assumed he was bored. And he said he could provide him a better alternative. But what you get is a little bit of entertainment, and then basically they try to get your money. And I truly believe his grandson was having a great time when he was playing with the sand.
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The competition is not really friendly or peaceful. It leads to oppression in some ways.
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When I was young, I would stay in my backyard and I would create roads and tunnels and systems. My uncle had a sawmill, and we had all sorts of pieces of wood, and we'd create a city. I truly believe that kids enjoy the box better than the car or the toy that's inside. So many times during Christmas, watching a kid, or even myself... There is excitement toward your toy, but then you put the toy on the side and something is created with the package.
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I'm just saying to everyone. The director does not direct the trailer. It's an edited version that takes so many moments of the movie, sometimes it's not even in the movie. The director does the movie. So don't judge the director based on the trailer. Please.
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When people are very original, sometimes they are original as a way to resist the mainstream.