After 'Superstar,' I was encouraged. I felt audiences wanted to be challenged.
The go-to reflex all over Hollywood is still likeability. I've always had a problem with it because I think I have a weird barometer in the sense that some of the characters I've cared about the most in movies are characters that are often thought of as despicable.
Mostly, theater becomes blander and blander as everyone wants the same thing they saw before. The good plays are the ones that don't allow you to do that.
You hear again and again that audiences want to see movies that are different, and critics say we make the same thing again and again in Hollywood, then you go and make something different, and you get kicked in the gut for it.
To be honest, I make very controversial films. The films that I've made have been very, very bold choices.
Movies should make people uncomfortable sometimes.
Confusion seems to have become the vogue of European directors.
I think it's important to form a connection with an audience to a point, but I also feel like there's an instructive element to what you're doing. And I think it's necessary to challenge people.
I'd rather make an interesting film that gets people talking, that maybe some people hate, than make the kind of 'entertaining' film that everyone feels ambivalent about.
I don't want to make a comfortable film. I'm not interested in that. I'm not interested in answering people's questions; I'm interested in posing questions. I'm interested in sparking a conversation between two people about what something means. That's enough for me, as a writer and as a director.
People think I take some sort of masochistic pleasure out of putting out music that's gonna be unpopular.
