I think Jenny Beavan is a masterful costume designer and very deserving of the Oscar for 'Mad Max: Fury Road.'
— Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
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.
If I had been at an assembly line for films, I don't know if I would be the best driver. I think I would have crashed the car.
It's different if you're self-fed by a culture such as the U.S. where it's so rich, you don't have to look outside. Everything's already there. But when you grow up in the desert, you have to be looking all over for inspiration.
I personally think that you have to get lost to find something really worthwhile, at least sometimes.
I leave the story room to grow into what the movie is driving me to do.
My father had a difficult relationship with success, maybe because he never obtained it. But he was very wise about it because he observed how you can become rotten fruit once you get power.
I love Sam Mendes, but I went to see 'Spectre' with my kid, and the opening scene of the Dia de Muertos party, with this kind of tropical music, in downtown Mexico City, with all these people dancing like it's the Rio de Janeiro carnival... I had to laugh.
When you taste a mango in the United States, it's just tasteless.
When things cost so much, you appreciate it much more.
Cinema is a mirror by which we often see ourselves.
For me, it is especially important to maintain my interior life. My spirituality, my connectedness. That is the way I think. That is the way I deal with life and tough moments. I keep in touch with something bigger than me. And I connect with people who have an interior life - a connection with something bigger than them.
I like the possibility of failure. I don't want to be in a comfortable zone.
I have always considered myself to be spiritual in a way that has less to do with religion and more with an awareness that you have, and the consciousness you have of being alive and the consciousness that you will be dead.
I have a bad reputation, I guess.
Now is a time where there are so many social networks, such need for validation... you don't have to be a star or a politician to want to have likes or dislikes. Now there is a disease of popularity in the whole society.
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 think, unfortunately, everything is becoming about comfort, you know? A comfortable way to tell a story. The comfortable way, so that the audience will never be lost. A comfortable way to produce a film with green screens or without a lot of physical effort or losing control because of the weather or physical locations.
When you shoot in a room, that's a symmetrical thing that contains you. When there's no contention, the sensation is overwhelming you. That's a challenge, to do that.
I have to have the wheel. It's given me an opportunity to experience and explore things.
I have dark skin. My nickname is El Negro. They call me El Negro in Mexico because even in my country, the dark skin is evidence of Indian blood, a sign that one technically belongs to a third class. Even my grandmother had some kind of differentiation with me, because I was darker than my siblings.
I love Eric Clapton.
I started developing 'The Revenant' before 'Birdman.'
Everything is reason. If you don't have reason, you have nothing.
Trump doesn't know it yet, but he will become one of the guys that he hates very soon. Soon he will be a loser.
We have lost the taste for the real.
I can't imagine David Lean justifying why he went to the desert to shoot 'Lawrence of Arabia.'
The demographic complexity of this country should be reflected not only at the end of the chain, but since the beginning, in order that more of these people can be excited and integrated.
I respect every religion.
When there's a good script, everybody circles.
When I'm working, I'm insufferable because I get stuck with myself, and suddenly I become obsessive, thinking about how to make something better.
In 'A Confession,' Tolstoy found meaning that he could hold on to, and he lived for another 30 years.
It was liberating to do comedy. It felt like playing in a jazz band.
I do think that the emotional weight of 'Biutiful' has blinded some viewers to the beauty and complexity of the film.
Rhythm is God. I think, without rhythm, you can't create - there is no art.
I understand Sean Penn. He has every right to look for El Chapo.
I can't understand the conditions of a corporate product being designed and getting millions. I admire it, it's great, but I don't know how to do that.
I think that the best things come from thought, without thinking. I think that's the smartest use of the intelligence that we all have.
The emotions of the actors are better when they understand the chronological factors that are adding to the story.
Very little is known about Hugh Glass as a real guy that existed 200 years ago, except that he was attacked by a bear, betrayed and left for dead, and has to survive in the winter. I said, 'What really drives a human to survive those conditions?'
Sad music, I always thought, is more beautiful than other music. But at the same time, I am in my personal life a very happy guy. I have a sense of humor. I am not the kind of depressed guy all the time brooding. No. I am very enthusiastic about things.
My duty is to make probable the improbable. If I tell you how I did it, I will ruin your experience.
When I talk about sad things, I talk about sad things.
All my films I have shot in chronological order - always. And the reason is that there's a moment that the screenplay is the notion of the film. But when you start doing a film... the work itself starts being transformed, and you have to surrender.
We try to show that violence has a consequence - when you create violence, it turns against you.
To think that we can understand everything is such stupidity because our senses are so limited. We are so limited that to feel that we can understand the creation scientifically is a little bit naive. It's very childish.
I have always been very wary of what would happen when I die. I feel I would die every day, and that thought sometimes made me more aware that I am alive.
In my work I think what drives me is perfection. I'm a chronically unsatisfied guy.
I'm telling the same story in every film.
Cinema is universal, beyond flags and borders and passports.
