Top 125 Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu Quotes

I think Jenny Beavan is a masterful costume designer and very deserving of the Oscar for ‘Mad Max: Fury Road.’

Really, Mexico City has always been this big, complex monster of a city that has always had real problems and needs, and I’ve always found my way through it in different ways.

The way films establish the order of scenes is very artificial.

Movies started out as an extension of a magic trick, so making a spectacle is part of the game.

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.

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.

Time starts out as a notion. But after you turn fifty, time is not a notion anymore but a fact that you start feeling clearly, and in a way, it pushes you to become present in the present.

In hotels, every time I make a reservation and they never find my name, they never can pronounce it; it’s so long, and sometimes they confuse.

I learned with ‘Birdman’ that it’s liberating when you just lose yourself and go after something that terrifies you.

When you have something that is bothering you, and then you articulate, take the time to really express it and see it clearly, to recognize. To acknowledge that is already a liberating energy.

I have always said that innocence is much more powerful than experience.

I have a lot of what you might call creative self-loathing – I have pretty high expectations, and they seem to consistently be higher than what I’m able to accomplish.

’21 Grams’ is only one story told by three different points of view, but they are really physically connected – literally, with the heart.

When you are shooting in a conventional way, you put nets around yourself. It’s very hard to fall and hit the ground. You can always manipulate things to make it not embarrassing. If the scene is a little bit bad, you can polish it or even take it out. You can hide your mistakes.

‘Amores Perros’ is three stories that interconnect in one moment, which is the car accident.

‘Amores Perros’ is rock, ’21 Grams’ is jazz, ‘Babel’ is an opera, and ‘Biutiful’ is a requiem.

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.

As the camera, I try to subordinate every word to be truthful and honest to each character’s context.

I like the possibility of failure. I don’t want to be in a comfortable zone.

I always have considered Michael Keaton to be a phenomenal actor because he navigates drama and comedy.

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.

Sometimes reading scripts is terrible.

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 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.

The emotions of the actors are better when they understand the chronological factors that are adding to the story.

Cannes or any other major festival is basically an animal in its own nature, creating very specific perceptions of films in a moment.

I’m an intense person.

It’s very healthy to be aware of your ego.

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.

The way I put together images is a reactive art.

The visual architecture of ‘Biutiful’ is the most sophisticated of all the films I have directed.

I really didn’t want to become branded as ‘that multistructural guy.’

In a world where irony reigns, where you have to separate, protect and laugh at anything that is honest or has an emotional charge, I bet for catharsis. I like to invest emotionally in things. And catharsis, when it touches the emotional vein, can open the doors of even those who protect themselves.

Rhythm is God. I think, without rhythm, you can’t create – there is no art.

I’m an intense person. My own vision of life has always been heavy.

I started developing ‘The Revenant’ before ‘Birdman.’

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.

To make a film is easy; to make a good film is war. To make a very good film is a miracle.

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?

I’ve learned to lose with a smile on my face. That’s what the Oscar teaches you.

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.

I think intelligence basically can be in a way defined by the possibility of having two opposite ideas living together and at the same time functioning. That’s why I think a smart script has two things living in the same place, and they’re absolutely contradictory.

Everyone’s terrified of being mediocre. Everyone wants to be special.

It was liberating to do comedy. It felt like playing in a jazz band.

I like to make films, but the only reason I do is because I’m a very bad musician.

When I have been exposed to so many films that are so bad, my soul gets crushed. I just feel intoxicated.

I think that people would like to, at all times, reject death and disease with technology.

Many Mexican directors are scared to shoot in Mexico City, which is why there are many stories in Mexican cinema about little rural towns, or set a hundred years ago.

I never deny a true experience in one shot.

It’s hard for me to work for somebody else. I can work with someone, but not for someone.

Time is what allows stories to spread into people’s consciousness.

I have fantastic ideas.

While ‘Babel’ is a foreign-language film in some countries, in others, it is a local film.

Life and death are illusions. We are in a constant state of transformation.

As a Third World citizen, I always feel that I need to express my point of view. Sometimes the points of view of Third World countries are never expressed. We don’t have that possibility, sometimes, to spread what we feel and how we see things.

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.

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!’

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.

The corporation and the hedge funds have a hold on Hollywood, and they all want to make money on anything that signifies cinema.

Writing is not an unknown territory for me.

People talk about the pain of defeat, but I think defeat has a lot of value. I think the wound of victory can be even more damaging than defeat. Very few people really know how to win.

I’m neurotic. I complain all the time. I’m a workaholic. And I’m never satisfied.

Look, I’m no purist – there are good superhero films, and there are bad ones.

When you see things upside down, the ego can be extraordinarily funny; it’s absurd. But it’s tragic at the same time.

I’m very curious, I guess, as a human being.

I have been very lucky to have final cut in all my films; everything that is wrong in them is my fault.

I think films are bigger than structure.

From the time we open our eyes, we live in a Steadicam form, and the only editing is when we talk about our lives or remember things.