You must understand that violence in a movie is only a tool. If it's used badly, it will be horrible. If it's used correctly, it can be very interesting. But, essentially, it's just a tool.
I think that experiencing through art is a wonderful way to expand the horizon and everything around it.
When you make something that everyone likes, it's very easy to say, "Well, I'll just repeat that." Because that was easy. I have a formula. But creatively, it's not very interesting.
I think when you make a movie, one of your main focuses as a director is to inspire everyone else to give their best. Like manipulation.
My movie [The Neon Demon] is a hyper-version of the obsession with beauty. As this crazy obsession grows, longevity does not. Everything seems to become younger and younger. The girls and people around them cannibalize themselves.
I've been trying to get away from physical violence; it's too easy; it doesn't satisfy me artistically to work with it. Dramatic violence is much more interesting, but it's much more difficult.
In "Drive," there's a heightened male edge. In "Only God Forgives," it was almost crawling back into the womb of the mother. And now with "The Neon Demon," being reborn as a 16-year-old girl.
Financially, it was very successful. Which is the most important thing. That is the only way you get to make another movie. It's very simple. The market will value you.
I've never really been on a date, because I've been with the same girl since my early twenties, but on our first date, I showed her The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. I was like, "Hey, you've got to see this!" And we've been together ever since.
I wanted to make a horror film about beauty.
Beauty is on one level pure surface, and on the other hand, it's the most complex subject that we can touch upon because it says everything about us as people. It's a subject we very quickly begin to argue about. I think that's so interesting.
We have basic urges all the time. They just manifest themselves in different scenarios, and we have to turn those weaknesses into our strengths. Art is very much about making your weaknesses your strength.
The world needs change, change needs an activity. It has to be planted by a thought.
I certainly believe that creativity must be an experience. If I'm to steal time away from people, we should give them something to react to.
For me, Amazon has stepped in and presented the future of entertainment. Obviously, the future of entertainment is going to be on the internet.
Man's fear of sexuality is the basis of all horror from the male perspective.
I don't have to go very far to see the power of beauty. Being desired, feeling desired is a very seductive aspect of our being.
The future is not about what you do, it's about what you stand for.
The fairy tale always takes place in worlds that are between, unidentifiable.
I don't know if power seduces less or more. I think power is a constant evolving mechanism that, since the dawn of time, on one level corrupts and on another level does not. But I think, no matter what, mutates.
The Oriental approach to violence is a much more aesthetic and poetic approach, whereas in the western world, violence is put in because you can't solve the problem. Violence is always the last solution, but unfortunately, in cinema, it's the first solution, because it's easy. And it's often too easy.
Financing films that are demanding is a task, in itself. Because people are so afraid of taking any kind of chance, because they're afraid the audience isn't going to respond. But the audience is so hungry for anything that's a bit original, personal, or different.
I consider it a great honour that my movie Drive inspired so many wonderful artists to come together and create one ultra-cool glam experience.
The more we become civilized, the more we simultaneously understand our need to be virtuous, and our need to understand our experiences on a subconscious level.
I never desired to really go to Hollywood and make films, and purely because I want my entire control, which I'm used to having.
