Godfrey Reggio Quotes

I want to put concepts in front of people that make them laugh or smile or even hate what I do. I'm not interested in just putting clothes in stores.

At least I want to be making films that are somehow born out of me that are stories I want to tell. The challenge is figuring out how to do it where you can make them personal, yet still deliver to an audience a film experience that is satisfying and emotional, and that's what I'm trying to do.

Dramatic experience is not logical; it may be subdued to the kind of coherence that we indicate when we speak, in criticism, of form.

Look, I'm just a storyteller. When I make a film, I never want the film to become a vehicle of social propaganda.

I do not believe that any work of art can help but be diminished by its adherence at any cost to a political program ... and not for any other reason than that there is no political program -- any more than there is a theory of tragedy -- which can encompass the complexities of real life.

I don't think it's an artist's responsibility to be political all the time. I think your first responsibility as an artist is to make music that people will listen to and enjoy. However, I think that when you are able to say something that is moving and put it in a great song, then that is even better.

I want to be a reflection of what's going on and let people draw their own conclusions.

My main object in making a motion picture is entertainment. If at the same time I can strike a blow for liberty, then I'll stick one in.

One of the things you do when you make a piece of art is you try to make the world you'd rather be in.

I don't like things I work on to have political didacticism - there are questions, but not messages.

I'm living as an artist, and that's a staggering feeling, it's a total luxury. And because you have this amazing chance, with so much freedom, I'm determined to make something that is worth that. I feel this responsibility - to create something that makes an audience feel, which takes them somewhere. But that's very hard to achieve.

To me, the technique was almost irrelevant; it was what was coming across.

I never start anything with a really overt, political, or even exactly artistic mission statement.

I get very frustrated by this term 'genre exercise.' I mean, what exactly is that? Genre is not really relevant when you are writing a song; hopefully you are doing it to explore something, to create something, and I don't agree that any of my albums are genre exercises.

Me, it was always about being able to bounce around to where I wanna be. Like, with 'Arular,' people always say it's so political, but I think 50 per cent of the album is not very political at all. It's just really a shouty, shouty girl thing.

But as long as you're creating the art you want to create, if people start liking you, you shouldn't have to apologize. You want your stuff to be heard by as many people as possible.

I do not make movies to send any message, but my treatment makes my viewers think on the subject.

I was raised around a lot of artists, musicians, photographers, painters and people that were in theater. Just having the art-communal hippie experience as a child, there wasn't a clear line that was drawn. We celebrated creative experience and creative expression. We didn't try and curtail it and stunt any of that kind of growth.

There were a lot of people dreaming about making films, and they would finance maybe 6 films a year. Because they were funded by the government, the films sort-of had to deal with serious social issues - and, as a result, nobody went to see those films.

With most of the songs and music that I've composed, irrespective of the myriad videos made, I was always careful not to overly define the experience, leaving room for people to internalize things for themselves, making their experience more integral.

Audiences like to be made to feel that there is a world where things go right: where big emotions can happen and yet feel safe. This is why there is a constant tension in Hollywood between studios who want happy endings and writers who want to explore the human condition. There is a time and a place for both!

Previously the same Polish audiences would have been pressured into seeing cinema made for adults, films made by us about those spheres of life that were significant for us and which should be significant for our society.

It's actually very freeing to be given permission as an artist to let that ride and to really let it ride, to actually experience it and bring it out of you. It's been uncomfortable and it's freeing at the same time.

I don't feel that as an artist my job is to offer PR propaganda, whether for the good or for the bad.

When I make a film, I never want the film to become a vehicle of social propaganda. If I wanted to do that, I'd make documentaries.