Complex Narratives Quotes

I think 'Caprica' is a little out of left field, which is kind of what I love about it. It's a little different. The first couple of episodes are really about wrapping your head around this world. I love 'Grey's Anatomy,' but I think it's the same kind of concept: You just get lost in this world, and you believe what they're setting up.

Though it's marvelously entertaining, and I had fantastic fun writing the book, it's not terribly easily, the material, and it's not all that familiar...although we think it is familiar. The processes of the wonderful narratives are very intricate. It's about the charm - the spellbinding charm - of ingenuity, and it's not so easy to remember the plots or the structure or even the names.

Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings. Following complex story lines stretches our brains beyond the 140 characters of sound-bite thinking, and staying within the world of a novel gives us the ability to be quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps.

Is the opposite of light entertainment meant to be dark and heavy?

That story about the two women in my life is - a lot of people get upset, a lot of people question it. Steven Soderbergh said to me, "The story of your life is incredible. The real story of your life that's interesting, more interesting than all the other stuff - the franchises, the movies, the songs, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra - the real thing that's interesting and unbelievable is the relationship with these two women. And if you're willing to put that out there, you know then, you're going to have a great movie. Because that's the movie."

Changing people's preconceptions is something you have to do in order to search for truth. Of course normally, that's not done because it also challenges social stability, and stories, as a result, are often told much more simply.

Adults need more complex narratives. They have their own narratives. The main characters are themselves.

Sometimes my plot lines are so convoluted, I get calls from friends at 3 am saying; you SOB, you'll never pull this one off.

What we believe at Quantic Dream is that there is a space for adult games: meaningful experiences for a mature audience.

There's people who watch shows while they're preparing their dinners, and they don't want to focus, and they don't want to be challenged, and whatever. And then there's people who want to really sit down and get into a character in a world, and feel like they're expanding, or they have complex relationships, or whatever.

A book is a better way to develop a complicated idea, or to tell a big story and to show how ideas weave in and out of each other, which is something that comes up a lot in happiness because all these ideas are interconnected.

I always saw two sides of life. I saw the dudes who would be the gangsta, big-time guys on the block, but would also be dedicated fathers. It was kind of weird to see that dual story that everybody has.

I think the documentary is something that people are hungry for, that it embodies careful thought, nuance.

I have always loved story - I escaped within it as a child, I read every day, I love figuring out the complex layers of an author's work.

I just don't know when we all decided that if it doesn't fit in a Happy Meal box, it's not for kids. I remember flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz, and I grew up watching Monty Python. I think that kids can handle a lot more than we give them credit for, especially when it comes to the absurd.

The Gift' doesn't deal with the neat, tie-me-up-with-a-bow kind of stories - they are grittier, messier, and not all of them have a happy resolution. You are following people and events that are more difficult, more elusive, and therefore harder to pin down.

I struggle with reading a bit. I'm slightly dyslexic, so reading takes me quite a while, and in general, I'm not a big book reader at all. And something like 'Game of Thrones' seems very daunting to me!

It's harder for me to work on a Forrest Gump kind of movie, where everything is invisible.

I'm interested in working with groups of actors to tell complicated stories about what's happening to people, and that's because I came out of the theatre where I worked in ensembles, and I really loved that.

Novels and stories are sometimes very complex staging grounds to say, in fact, very simple things. Things impossible to say otherwise because they are repeated in so many exploitative contexts - adverts and TV shows and political speeches.

I like films that continue to spin your head in all sorts of different directions after you've seen them.

The distinction has blurred between young adult and adult books. Some of the teen books have become more sophisticated.

I love big ensemble shows where there are a lot of things going on and you have to really pay attention because there's a lot of nuanced work and universal themes are being explored.

'West Wing' was huge. Like 'Hamilton,' it pulls back the curtain on how decision-making happens at the highest level, or at least how you hope it would be. The amount of information Aaron Sorkin packs into a scene gave me this courage to trust the audience to keep up.

News makes things black and white. Documentary filmmaking should do the opposite.