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The competition is not really friendly or peaceful. It leads to oppression in some ways.
Michel Gondry -
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.
Michel Gondry
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When people are very original, sometimes they are original as a way to resist the mainstream.
Michel Gondry -
I would define myself as being naive and perverse at the same time. And I think that if that is consistent it will make the tone consistent.
Michel Gondry -
Competition impedes creativity because you present yourself in a way that's going to been seen by somebody outside of you. You're not very much yourself and it limits you.
Michel Gondry -
I want to explore new ideas and put myself in a place where I can finish a project that is more unusual or that doesn't seem doable.
Michel Gondry -
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.
Michel Gondry -
I'm just thinking of 2001, which I think is the most expensive independent film ever made - which is great, someday I hope I will do one. But I know the parameters when I got onto this project - I have to take care of everyone, make sure that they are all on board, and this process interests me.
Michel Gondry
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I've always liked the idea of inventing stuff. My father told me, because I was naïve, I would think things could work and therefore do them, because I would have no doubt even though there was no solid foundation for this confidence. I don't think I would be a real inventor. But when I set out to do animation, which was my first step into film-making, I realised I could achieve this idea. I could take some elements, create a sort of clumsy invention, and make them work for the camera.
Michel Gondry -
At school I was very shy. I wasn't funny really.
Michel Gondry -
I'm going to work with Dan Clowes. After Charlie Kaufman, it's hard to fill up the gap. It's hard to find somebody who... A lot of writers, I can clearly see the desire of succeeding before the desire of expressing themselves. Sometimes people get upset when you want to be different. You were talking about "whimsical," which is a nice word. But sometimes they use the word "quirky" in the pejorative sense. I get frustrated, because they feel like I'm doing whatever I want, and there is no ground, and I don't really care. They feel it's cynical. But I don't think I have any cynicism in me.
Michel Gondry -
I'm always excited to work with actors.
Michel Gondry -
The problem is, with a lot of children's films, they are very commercial.
Michel Gondry -
I don't like the idea of competition - maybe because I kept losing them when I was a kid. Maybe it's better to be the one who loses?
Michel Gondry
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The problem when you edit a film together, when you shoot a film, you are drawn into the moment. You want each moment to be special and full of life.
Michel Gondry -
Pop music is created by repression - and then the system takes it and makes even more money with it!
Michel Gondry -
I had a lot of encouragement and tolerance from my parents, but I also have many friends who didn't get that from their parents and in a way they have more strength from spending years where nobody believed in them.
Michel Gondry -
I love 3D a lot, I have a great interest in 3D, so if I am given the tools to do a project with 3D, it's a dream for me.
Michel Gondry -
You can't feel sorry for a scene. If the movie works without the scene, then you don't need the scene.
Michel Gondry -
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.
Michel Gondry
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In the '90s movies were so serious, and so stylistic and slick that I could not identify with them.
Michel Gondry -
I like collaboration, I like to incorporate other people's ideas and that's what happens when you do a big movie. Unless you're called Stanley Kubrick and you do an independent movie for like $200 million.
Michel Gondry -
I shoot people in a way that makes the audience feel equal to them. And it's hard to express and it's hard to execute but I think it works on every level - the choice of the material the choice of the actor, my relationship with the actor, and so on.
Michel Gondry -
I like actors who don't have to think too hard about what they have to do to achieve their performance.
Michel Gondry