George C. Wolfe Quotes

When Wes has a new a project, you know that it's going to be something as different as the previous was from the previous one. Each time, he tries to take you to a country, or a land that is unknown for you and for him, and reinvent this land. That's what he did with 'Darjeeling,' with 'Mr. Fox,' with 'Moonrise Kingdom.'

A true artist is always out of his time.

To make great movies, there is an element of risk. You have to say, 'Well, I am going to make this film, and it is not really a sure thing.'

Not to be boxed in, to be able to transcend boundaries: for an artist, it's essential.

The best films come about through experimentation.

I always wanted to be really experimental.

I began taking liberties a long time ago; now it is standard practice for most directors to ignore the rules.

I'm a complete deviant. All creative work breaks new ground.

Creativity is not and never has been sensible.

As a director, you try to find what is creative.

I look at people like Picasso and Da Vinci and Escher and Miles Davis, and they'll write or paint that one definitive masterpiece of maybe 50 that they have that's really trying to go outside the box, trying to do something that's tough. And then when you accomplish it, you look back and go, 'Yeeaaaah - masterpiece.'

If you stick with a vision, it might not all work, but some of it will be absolute genius. To me, 15 minutes worth of absolute genius in a film is so much better than two hours of mediocrity. I would rather pay to see something different like that.

Create your own method. Don't depend slavishly on mine. Make up something that will work for you! But keep breaking traditions, I beg you.

My respect for artists is very high. I think to get the most out of them, you have to liberate them. I think part of liberating them is saying, 'Come up with something brilliant, new, and fresh. Stop thinking based on what has been beat into you by executives or publishers in terms of what's going to work and what's not. Don't react, just act.'

I'm always drawn to writing things that feel like uncharted territory.

It's all about risk-taking when you're making an album. Don't be scared to do weird things sometimes.

No film should try to follow a trend, and do what film people think the public wants. There's no such thing as knowing what the public wants.

To be able to create fully, it's maybe fine that you learn the rules, but you have to forget and to rebel against those rules.

I think I'm always trying to subvert conventions, and sometimes it's more successful than others.

I've had a lot of folks tell me that my songs weren't quite country because they didn't really sound like anybody that had come along and done it before me. I felt a little out of place for a while.

I'm not gonna do the same, tired, standard 'I was born in a log cabin...' kind of book. There's so much more I want to do.

Since I was in my early twenties, at ABC, I was always only interested in things that were not already being done.

The most important thing is, how can I move forward towards something that I can't articulate, that is new in storytelling with moving images and sound?

There's no room for being a visionary in the studio system. It literally cannot exist.

It's a very subjective, personal, instinctive approach as musicians of saying, 'We don't want to replace what's around; we just want to widen the possibilities.'