Cinema is an art form that is designed to go across borders. And as a filmmaker, the only way I can direct a movie is when I feel close to my culture.
Interpretation
Cinema transcends cultural boundaries, and a filmmaker's connection to their own culture is essential for authentic storytelling.
This quote emphasizes the universal nature of cinema as an artistic medium that can connect people across different cultures and backgrounds. It also highlights the importance of a filmmaker's personal connection to their own culture, suggesting that true artistic expression in film is rooted in authenticity and a sense of belonging.
In practice
In a speech about the significance of cultural cinema at a film festival.
I think I'm attracted to subjects that I'm afraid of. It's a way to approach things I am afraid of, things that bring fear in my heart, and try to understand them, try to deal with them. It's like demons. I try to approach it and understand it... I'm just visiting fears.
As a director, you're a bit of a dictator. But I feel that you're a better director if you're open to other people's ideas. It means that it's tougher: you have to be in a choosing process; you have to put the ego aside. As long as everybody's aiming in the same direction... I'm open to my main partners in the film crew.
I've been dreaming to do sci-fi since I was 10 years old, and I said 'no' to a lot of sequels - I couldn't say 'no' to 'Blade Runner.'
If you don't deal with your shadows, you are condemned to repeat the same mistake over and over, as a human being or as a society.
'Sicario' is about how the Western world reacts toward problems outside of its borders. Should we become monsters in order to fight the monsters? It's not about the cartels. The movie could have been set in Africa or the Middle East.
Instead of art I have taught philosophy. Though technique for me is a big word, I never have taught how to paint. All my doing was to make people to see.
Art is not like other culture because its success is not made by its audience. The public fill concert halls and cinemas every day, we read novels by the millions, and buy records by the billions. 'We the people' affect the making and quality of most of our culture, but not our art.
Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.
As a young person, and I know it’s hard to believe that I was shy, but you could take your camera, and it would take you to places: it was like having a friend, like having someone to go out with and look at the world. I would do things with a camera I wouldn’t do normally if I was just by myself.
I had a funny feeling as I saw the house disappear, as though I had written a poem and it was very good and I had lost it and would never remember it again.
Too much is demanded by the critic, attempted by the poet.
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