Kim Ki-duk Quotes

It doesn't matter who's directing, or who's doing the movie; there are a ton of things that can go wrong, and they do all the time. So you just have to figure out how to get through it, and then how the director finally puts it together, and then see what the audience takes from it. That's the most important thing to me.

I feel like what Director Bong is so amazing at is taking so many things and presenting them to you - never telling you how to think, but, if you leave the theater thinking something, we've done our jobs right.

Film is subjective, and we must be careful with that. The kinds of films I love are those that observe, and I give possibility for people to talk. No need for me to tell people what to think - even when I make a film like 'S-21.' It's only one point of view. It's still a film; it's not a tribunal.

What higher art does is to invite us in and allow us to make decisions.

I never control a film. The film controls me.

I want to make my kind of films but make them work commercially, too. When my presentation meets the director's imagination, the result will be great.

The opinion of the public is sacred. The director is a cook who merely offers different dishes to them and has no right to insist they react in a particular way. A film is just a projection of light, completed only when it crosses the gaze of the audience[...]

A lot of people don't give their audiences credit. You can leave it a little mysterious. They can think about it.

Intrigue is so much more effective. I don't like to be over-prescriptive of an audience. The same with a book or with art - people shouldn't read too much before they explore.

If you can get your movie made the way you want to get it made, no matter what the end result is going to be, if people are going to see it, that's awesome.

The most important thing is to have a point of view and have something to say. That is important if you are filmmaker or artist. That means you have to experience the world.

You can say your lines a million different ways and play your character a million different ways and still hit the common, agreed-upon finish line.

What I love about film is that everybody often connects to something so different, and things you couldn't anticipate when you were making the film, so you just make it as honest as possible.

The vision people have of a director is completely flawed - someone with a crystalline vision of everything they're going to do. How boring would that be? It's a creative and collaborative process.

You can't expect to connect with everybody, and that's all right. The more I make films, I'm learning that you don't have to make films for everybody. A film can be made for a smaller group of people than that, and it still warrants an existence.

I started making films purely based on what I would like to see.

Amplify, clarify, and punctuate, and let the viewer draw his or her own conclusion.

You finish a film not in the editing, but in the conversations that audiences have with themselves - and in that sense, every viewer is making a slightly different film. And that's wonderful.

You can't write a thing that is hermetically sealed; there has to be a way for the audience to get in and participate. I think that's a massively valuable discipline for any artist.

Sometimes if the point of a piece of music is to open a conversation with other people, it's really hard to open that conversation if you're telling people exactly what to do or feel or think.

As a filmmaker, it's not my intent to trigger or shape national discourse. My task is to make as powerful and understandable a film as I can. What happens next is what happens next.

I like leaving a space hollowed out, where as I change I can inject new meaning in the shell of the songs all of the time. Where anyone who listens can hopefully inhabit them in their own way.

Film becomes a living organism. After awhile, it begins to tell you what it needs, and you're usually best listening.

It's not my job to tell people what a work means.

I follow my inspiration to wherever it goes. I do want the fans to feel the fun and excitement about it, and I like for people to be able to make their own interpretations about my work.