Quotes by Michel Gondry

I want to see abstract art move. Especially in the ’30s, you had animators doing innovative work, and I was entranced by that. It’s basically what you see when you close your eyes, when you fall asleep.

In the ’90s movies were so serious, and so stylistic and slick that I could not identify with them.

I’ve always loved 3D. In fact, as a kid, I was exposed to 3D at an early age because my grandfather was a specialist of 3D in cinematheques. And then my cousin put it in ‘Science of Sleep’ with toilet paper tube cities. But he was a specialist and I always wanted to do something in 3D.

I think some people feel that if you are going to have 3D, then you have to shoot in 3D, but they shoot 3D, so of course they’re going to say ‘my way of doing a film is better.’ I’m not telling anyone how they should do their film, so why should anyone tell me how I should do mine?

There is an amount of abstraction in my movies, and sometimes they don’t really understand it until the film is finished.

It’s part of my job to maintain the emotional reality and the naturalism even when the atmosphere is contrived.

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.

The problem is when you get forced to use ideas that aren’t good. When I can filter the ideas and use the best of them, I am happy to collaborate.

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.

You can’t feel sorry for a scene. If the movie works without the scene, then you don’t need the scene.