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.
— Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
I like to make films, but the only reason I do is because I'm a very bad musician.
Ultimately, with every film I'd done before, there was a reference. They have their own uniqueness, but there was always a precedent.
My kid will come home from seeing the latest 'Transformers' movie, and I'll ask him, 'How was it?' 'Amazing!' 'What was it about?' 'I don't know, but it was amazing!'
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.
Always when you are doing films, the themes swallow you in one way or another.
To make a film is easy; to make a good film is war. To make a very good film is a miracle.
I see only one requirement you have to have to be a director or any kind of artist: rhythm. Rhythm, for me, is everything. Without rhythm, there's no music. Without rhythm, there's no cinema. Without rhythm, there's no architecture.
I think films are bigger than structure.
'Russian Ark,' I adore - I almost cried at the end of that film, it's so beautiful.
That incredible bubble and high expectations built at festivals can work against a film.
It's not anthrax or terrorism or AIDS that is the worst ill in our world: The most horrible disease in the world is hate.
I can be unbearable sometimes asking for so many takes.
I think we are all connected in this world.
'Amores Perros' is rock, '21 Grams' is jazz, 'Babel' is an opera, and 'Biutiful' is a requiem.
Too much knowledge and analysis can be paralysis.
The 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?
Sometimes reading scripts is terrible.
I'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.
Antonio Sanchez is from Mexico City. I met him at a Pat Metheny concert. He did a solo, and I thought, 'This is an octopus man!'
Do you know the phrase, 'The word 'water' will not wet you?' It's one thing to write down an idea and another thing entirely to execute it.
I'm overwhelmed by the pain in the world; I'm affected by the news very much, and adding that to my work was becoming a little bit too much.
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.
I learned with 'Birdman' that it's liberating when you just lose yourself and go after something that terrifies you. The experience was so good.
When I was sixteen, I was an absolutely romantic guy. I fell in love every week. I mean, I was in love with everybody, but unfortunately, nobody was in love with me.
I think we do good things and bad things, sometimes simultaneously - or they may be the same thing.
As the camera, I try to subordinate every word to be truthful and honest to each character's context.
The corporation and the hedge funds have a hold on Hollywood, and they all want to make money on anything that signifies cinema.
I'm usually very critical of myself.
Millions of Mexicans leave their kids in order to take care of other kids. That's a very painful thing.
We have always existed in different forms - carbon, oxygen, water, heat. Maybe Heaven is this brief period when the elements realize they're alive.
I like so many different directors: Scorsese, Coppola, Cassavetes, Jarmusch, Gus van Sant, Woody Allen and the greats like Fellini, Bergman, Tarkovsky and among current filmmakers von Trier, Ang Lee, Wong Kar-wai.
Innocence can be more powerful than experience.
As a city, it is always compelling. But every day in Mexico City, I give thanks that I am alive.
When 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.
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 don't have a career. I have a life.
Actors are exposed in a way that nobody else can understand. They are subject to the likes and dislikes of people their entire life, no matter how successful they are. At the same time, in order to be liked, you have to not be yourself. So it's a very complicated human exercise - an alchemy that I have never understood.
Now that we're poisoned with the culture of superheroes, I think it's important to laugh about it.
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 have to have the wheel.
I think when you turn 50 you get a little melancholic in a way.
I think I want to talk about life from the point of view of death.
The way films establish the order of scenes is very artificial.
You have to make millions on Friday night, because there are another 600 films waiting behind you, with explosions and everything.
I learned there are ways to approach life. You can never change the events, but you can change the way you approach them.
If you stretch tragedy, it will always become comedy.
To direct actors is difficult. To direct actors in another language is more difficult, but directing non-actors in another language is one of the craziest things that I have done and one of the most rewarding experiences I have had.
Life and death are illusions. We are in a constant state of transformation.
It's harder to make real audio than special effects audio.
I'm neurotic. I complain all the time. I'm a workaholic. And I'm never satisfied.
