Michel Gondry Quotes

There's not a formula that I'm following; it's just how I feel at the time. For instance, I did a very experimental film called 'Hardcore Henry,' and that was simply because I thought the filmmaker was very interesting and a risk taker. A film like that had never been made before, so I chose to do that at the time.

I was the first records editor at Rolling Stone, and there were no rules. There was nothing to fall back on as to how do you write about this kind of music, so people were trying absolutely everything with a great sense of freedom and experimentation and success and failure, and a feeling of, “My God, people are actually paying attention to this. Let’s pretend they aren’t because we don’t want to be intimidated by what somebody might think of what we’re saying.

Rhianna don't want you to give her what you think that she wants. She needs you to give her something that's fresh. So you have to bend your voice and bend your personality and bend the music to make sure it sounds like it's new to everybody.

I think half the point of painting a picture is that you don't know what will happen... that if painters did know what was going to happen they wouldn't bother to do it.

[In making music] it's nice to not have a goal, to not have a set format. It's very liberating to just get out of your comfort zone and be in a new space.

I think it's worthwhile to expand your comfort level and just do something awful. I wasn't trying to make music for money.

Choreography is simpler than you think. Just go and do, and don't think so much about it. Just make something interesting.

Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure, a sense of nothing having been done before, of complete freedom to experiment.

Art like life, should be free, since both are experimental.

That is a big danger, losing your inspiration. When I work in film and television I try to do each take a little differently. I never want to do the same thing twice, because then you're not being spontaneous, you're just recreating something.

I'd rather play here in this small bar and just do a good show. Because it's fun and there's no expectations, it's encouragement to be different, do something new.

I never got tied down to any social scene. I was just into creating stuff. And I think, even today, that's how I'm able to work and move between so many different genres - I want to be part of what's happening, I want to make new things.

I think, in big-budget movies where everything seems so poured over and restricted and the studio wants to examine every frame to make sure it's vetted properly, you lose a little bit of playfulness.

It's really fun to just stretch out and not have any boundaries or just try something for the craft.

Making a movie really frees up the way you think.

Signature film-making seems rather dull to me; it's about finding something you can do something with and running with the ball.

One thing I don't understand is how people want you to replicate your past successes. Being an artist should be about freedom and not just becoming one thing, because I think that's terrible and boring.

The best stuff comes out when you're not making it for anything and you don't really know what you're making.

Way back in the beginning, I would say in the 20s, when titles were first being treated for films, there was a lot of crazy stuff going on. Everybody was inventing. There were no conventions. Everything was up for grabs.

I love to create something new every night onstage; that makes a big difference.

We don't do lots of jamming on stage, but I think we have the attitude of exploring things and trying something new.

I didn't go to film school. I was never an assistant or trainee on a film. I had not seen all those cameras. So I think it gave me a lot of freedom.

Why not do something strange and different for once? Artists can do whatever they want!

Don't think about making art.

Half of art is accident, but there is no accident without free experiment.