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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.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
I think that people would like to, at all times, reject death and disease with technology.
Ultimately, with every film I'd done before, there was a reference. They have their own uniqueness, but there was always a precedent.
The corporation and the hedge funds have a hold on Hollywood, and they all want to make money on anything that signifies cinema.
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.
The emotions of the actors are better when they understand the chronological factors that are adding to the story.
We try to show that violence has a consequence - when you create violence, it turns against you.
I have fantastic ideas.
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 have been very lucky to have final cut in all my films; everything that is wrong in them is my fault.
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.
The problem with the screenplay is that it's not literature, and it's not a film. It's a very weird, technical kind of blueprint that will be absolutely transformed into something else that is not that, you know? Honestly, a screenplay is no literature.
I never deny a true experience in one shot.
I think musically.
To question your own process is a necessity. If you don't question yourself, it's impossible to improve.
Filmmaking can give you everything, but at the same time, it can take everything from you.
When you have critics filing on Twitter, it leaves no time for thought and perspective.
The cavemen, when they saw the antelopes, they had to scratch them on to the caves because they needed to express the immediacy of what they were being affected by - and I love that. That is why I do what I do. I need to express myself.
I have to have the wheel. It's given me an opportunity to experience and explore things.
I leave the story room to grow into what the movie is driving me to do.
You have to make millions on Friday night, because there are another 600 films waiting behind you, with explosions and everything.
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.
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.
I learned there are ways to approach life. You can never change the events, but you can change the way you approach them.
There was so much fear after 9/11, and that fear caused people to make the wrong decisions.
For me, the most important thing that I have to accomplish is to be a good father. That's the most difficult challenge of my life. That's the most important thing for me, more than films.
I understand Sean Penn. He has every right to look for El Chapo.
'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.
The visual architecture of 'Biutiful' is the most sophisticated of all the films I have directed.
At a very young age, I was influenced enormously by Julio Cortazar or Carlos Fuentes. In that literature, there's always an exploration of different perspectives, points of view.
We have these ambitions that are very hard to accomplish because life puts us in our place. We have this battle with mediocrity.
Cannes or any other major festival is basically an animal in its own nature, creating very specific perceptions of films in a moment.
I can't imagine David Lean justifying why he went to the desert to shoot 'Lawrence of Arabia.'
I think that when we wrestle with death... we start fearing life, because then we come to terms with something that is inevitable.
I'm neurotic. I complain all the time. I'm a workaholic. And I'm never satisfied.
I think the most experimental way to a film is to tell the story the traditional way, because everyone is doing the other thing.
I can be unbearable sometimes asking for so many takes.
Always when you are doing films, the themes swallow you in one way or another.
'Amores Perros' is rock, '21 Grams' is jazz, 'Babel' is an opera, and 'Biutiful' is a requiem.
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.
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 started off writing TV adverts. I saw those as rehearsals for a feature film.
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.
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 want the camerawork to fit the narrative and tell the story from the point of view of the character, but sometimes, to be interacting with the sensations of the story, you almost become like a ghost, you know? Like, someone that is floating, observing, not really judging what's going on.
I think Jenny Beavan is a masterful costume designer and very deserving of the Oscar for 'Mad Max: Fury Road.'
Good directors don't answer questions with their work. They generate debate and create discussion.
Rhythm is God. I think, without rhythm, you can't create - there is no art.
If the audience, in minute 50, is thinking about the way a movie is shot, there's a problem. I want it to permeate emotionally.
I'm always surprised when some director says, 'When I saw this film, that changed my life.' I don't have that.
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