Michel Gondry quotes

Michel Gondry is a French film director, screenwriter, and producer known for his inventive visual style and imaginative storytelling. His work includes acclaimed films such as "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and a range of distinctive music videos. He is celebrated for bringing a playful and dreamlike quality to modern cinema. Here are 33 of his quotes:

I'm part of the consumer culture... I'm just using the space I am given to express something that is out of the space so I'm part of the consumer system but I'm advocating stepping out. Which is a contradiction but I could be part of he consumer system and say, 'let's consume even more.'

Michel Gondry

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

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

There's nothing worse than a dream sequence done all in post-production.

Michel Gondry

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

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

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

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

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

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

When people are very original, sometimes they are original as a way to resist the mainstream.

Michel Gondry

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

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

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

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

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

Pop music is created by repression - and then the system takes it and makes even more money with it!

Michel Gondry

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

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

I shoot people in a way that makes the audience feel equal to them. And it's hard to express and it's hard to execute but I think it works on every level - the choice of the material the choice of the actor, my relationship with the actor, and so on.

Michel Gondry

All these gadgets, the phone and the computer, they expose the inside of your brain in a way that's bad.

Michel Gondry

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