Jonathan Raymond Quotes

I've made some bad movies. And I really enjoyed it!

I'm lucky enough to be able to make films and so I don't need a psychiatrist. I can sort out my fears and all those things with my work. That's an enormous privilege. That's the privilege of all artists, to be able to sort out their unhappiness and their neuroses in order to create something.

I'm not a snob... there's room for entertainment that reaches a lot of people and can be really good, but you don't just have to be one kind of actor.

You always try to work for your audience, to entertain them, but that being said, obviously, within the studio system you feel the sense of responsibility to the bank.

I'm not a lyric writer to make statements. What I enjoy doing is making paintings with lyrics, creating colorful images. I think that's more what entertainment and music should be.

But if you have a point of view and you're an artist or a writer, it's kind of crazy to not take advantage of that, especially if you can do something that's entertaining as well. I've done a number of things like that over the years.

I've always had this rule of thumb: If you have fun making it, then someone will have fun watching it.

The artist writes, paints, sings or dances the burden of some idea or feeling off his mind.

You have to take some dramatic license just to make it entertaining sometimes.

When Scorsese shoots a violent scene, it's very uncomfortable - it's not like watching 'Rambo.'

My sense of responsibility to the audience is to screen things that they would never see in a local theater.

Poetry is respected only in this country [Russia.] There is no place where more people are killed for it.

There's obviously a group who enjoys what Tyler Perry is putting out there. And why fault them? And there's a group that loves the things that Spike does. So they should enjoy that, too. Is it my taste? Maybe not, but I'm not going to fault anybody for doing what they're doing as long as people are showing up.

I don't want to choose between commercial and independent cinema. I just want to choose between a good film and a bad film.

I'm not very particular about the commercial angle in my films, but entertainment is very important.

I don't think about money when it comes to films.

If we keep making things based on violence and platform jumping, you don't need Ellen Page to do this, to be honest. It would be a waste of time and a waste of money.

Violence is a form of cinematic entertainment. Asking me about violence is like going up to Vincente Minnelli and asking him to justify his musical sequences.

If I've made it a little easier for artists to work in violence, great! I've accomplished something.

I sometimes go for the strongest, most vivid colour on the palette, which in the case of movies is violence.

A painter paints to unload himself of feelings and visions.

Not everything we do as artists has deep intent. If we push barriers, that's great, but sometimes we just do our work. Whether we make some kind of statement, consciously or unconsciously, we shouldn't take the innocence away from what we do.

Art is like a fart for the soul. Better out than in.

I gladly, I voluntarily gave up the kind of commercial film career I had going as soon as I had enough money to finance my own films. I didn't make that money necessarily from the film business, but I eventually made a lot of money and that's what I do. Of course, I consider myself unbelievably fortunate, and I'm pretty content with my life.

To call yourself a Chinese artist or woman artist or African artist reflects a certain kind of condition. To me, that is not necessary.