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" It's very hard to say I'm surrealist. It's like saying I'm poetic. It's not something you want necessarily to be aware of. "
Michel Gondry
Say
You
Hard
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" The problem is, with a lot of children's films, they are very commercial. "
Michel Gondry
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" I don't mock things, which makes me more vulnerable to mockery myself. If you're cynical, you're protected from mockery. But I have to be nice. I don't think I have irony. A sense of humour, yes, but not irony. "
Michel Gondry
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You
Think
" 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. "
Michel Gondry
Start
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" I don't like vampire movies or zombie movies. I went to see 'I Am Legend' with an ex-girlfriend the other day, and I immediately realised it was a zombie movie! You know what I mean? There are certain rules, and those rules are things that you've seen many times. "
Michel Gondry
Know
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Legend
" 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
Stars
Hero
Camera
" The beauty of doing film is that you construct whatever you do block by block and you can build something that will stay. "
Michel Gondry
You
Build
Beauty
" All these gadgets, the phone and the computer, they expose the inside of your brain in a way that's bad. "
Michel Gondry
Inside
Way
Brain
" I learned to drive when I was 35. I'm driving like an old lady and very close to the wheel. I don't take many risks, and when people yell at me I say 'sorry, sorry, sorry!' I don't have road rage yet. "
Michel Gondry
Me
Drive
People
" I always wanted to create this community that would come and tell their own story, shoot it - and watch them. The idea is to not have one entity who creates the work, the project, and another entity who consumes it; the idea is people create their own work, like somebody cultivating his garden. "
Michel Gondry
Work
Story
Create
" Pop music is created by repression - and then the system takes it and makes even more money with it! "
Michel Gondry
Pop Music
Money
System
" People who get to express their voice are paid by the people who make profit from it. So they're going to make you believe you have to spend your money buying these products otherwise you won't be happy. This is really wrong. Especially the implication it carries. "
Michel Gondry
Voice
People
Money
" 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. "
Michel Gondry
Internet
Watch
Trying
" I try to learn from both, from features and documentaries. In both cases you have to find a way to make the camera as discreet as possible, and flexible enough to be able to capture the moment when it happens. I know from documentary how to not have a preconceived idea of what the scene could be. "
Michel Gondry
You
Camera
Enough
" My grandfather lived across the garden from us, and in his attic he had a lot of radios, appliances and inventions that he had made over 50 years, such as a keyboard called a clavioline, which can be heard on some Beatles songs - it was popular in the 60s. So we had all that at home. "
Michel Gondry
Over
Garden
Home
" Sometimes it's interesting to see something that you're not used to seeing, which is the main ingredient of life, and it's removed from the usual entertainment. I think it's important to give the opportunity to people to witness the life of somebody who was not public. "
Michel Gondry
People
Think
You
" I like the days when all the filmmakers had was a film roll, a camera and a gangster. The Mack Sennett comedies were all like that. They'd create little teams to go out and shoot films. "
Michel Gondry
Film
Camera
Go
" When people are very original, sometimes they are original as a way to resist the mainstream. "
Michel Gondry
Resist
Way
Sometimes
" 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
Losing
Like
Competition
" I don't call cut between the takes - it's my way to help the actor keep focused. As soon as you say 'cut' you have 10 people jumping on them and everybody's trying to do a great job, and they do, but sometimes they forget that the more important thing is the performance, creating the performance. "
Michel Gondry
Performance
Great
Help
" Perhaps my favourite story is 'Le Passe-Muraille' by Marcel Ayme. It's about a guy who wakes up with a weird faculty that means he can walk through walls. He's a very shy clerk, and he uses it to get revenge, or vent his frustration. "
Michel Gondry
Frustration
Revenge
Story
" 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. "
Michel Gondry
Problem
Way
Interview
" 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
Tolerance
Strength
Friends
" When I shoot actors, I have that dilemma. I want the actor to be good, and sometimes I have to push them to a place that isn't pleasant. I always think: 'Is it worth doing for the sake of the movie?' But I have to remember the bigger picture. "
Michel Gondry
Good
Think
Remember
" 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. "
Michel Gondry
You
Boat
Camera
" There's nothing worse than a dream sequence done all in post-production. "
Michel Gondry
Done
Dream
Nothing
" I think my imagination dictates the technologies I use. But at the same time, my imagination can be technologic. Sometimes I see a tool and I know immediately how to use it, but most of the time I use the tool for an idea I already have. "
Michel Gondry
Know
Time
Think
" The MTV Video Awards were never about the video, but about the song. Most of the time it was just to glorify people for the wrong reason. "
Michel Gondry
Time
Never
People
" You need philosophy. It sounds a little pompous but I think when you direct a film, the only way to find a response to the questions you keep asking yourself is to have a philosophy. "
Michel Gondry
You
Need
Yourself
" 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. "
Michel Gondry
He
Father
Some
" I don't want to compare myself to him - I don't want people to see me as this great genius - but when I see Charlie Chaplin's movies there is a combination of drama, naivety and social meaning that I can see in myself, at a different level. "
Michel Gondry
Me
Great
Genius