My non-fiction films are pretty much fiction, or at least close... It's all "movies" for me. I never have searched for a subject. They always just come along. They never come by way of decision-making. They just haunt me. I can't get rid of them. I did not invite them.
With actors, normally I don't like to have any conversation about background and about motivations and all this.
ِِِِِِِِِِArt house theaters are vanishing. They have almost disappeared completely, and that means there's a shift in what audiences want to see. And they have to be aware of that and be realistic. It's as simple as that.
But the question that everyone wanted answered was whether I would have the nerve and the strength to start the whole process from scratch. I said yes; otherwise I would be someone who had no dream left, and without dreams I would not want to live.
In the communist revolution in North Korea, when they threw out the Japanese occupiers, they claimed the power in the dynamic of this volcano for their revolution, saying that this is at the center of the dynamics of our revolution. Everything that you encounter - you don't have, for example, any advertisements, you don't have anything like that anywhere in the country - if you see anything it would be propaganda, and propaganda always inevitably comes back to the volcano. It's always including the volcano. You see the new leader and standing behind him you see the volcano.
It's very enigmatic because of course, the population [of North Korea] has no contact with the world outside or it's very, very limited. They don't have any telephone connections, no radio, no TV, no movies, no newspapers - nothing from the outside world. This is very strange and there's the very strict, unifying government that forces you to be in step. You see it in the stadium where the spectators create, by flipping cards, an image of the dear leader, or of the volcano, and it's made of a 100,000 human pictures.
The power of a volcano when it erupts is so evident, so visible, so palpable.
The punishment itself is something I respectfully disagree with, but for thousands and thousands of years it was practiced everywhere.
I think a state should not be in the capacity of killing anyone with the exception of warfare.
I do have a clear vision, and I do see things that are existing in my quote-unquote spirit, but that doesn't necessary make me a very spiritual person.
I'm reminded of an interview Larry King had on his talk show with one of Michael Jackson's sisters. He's talking about how many millions she made on her latest record, and all of a sudden, she looks at him tearfully and says, "Larry, you know, I'm not interested in money or sales or songs. I'm a spiritual person." And I thought, "Oh my god..."
I prefer the material woman.
I always had a feeling, for example, that there should be something from Verdi's "Requiem" in the film. You hear it when you see the lava flow in Iceland. That turned out to be a very easy choice.
That shot in "Into the Inferno" somehow popped up while my editor and I were viewing the footage. I immediately said, "That looks like the opening shot because the camera approaches the action very slowly and we have enough time to insert some of the main credits into it." So it was a practical choice. At the same time, you see these tiny figures standing at the rim of something, and all of a sudden, the camera rises further and you find yourself looking straight down into an inferno.
Some of the most important caves, like Lascaux in the Dordogne region in France, have had to be closed down. There had been too many people allowed in, and they left a mold on the walls that is spreading and which can't really be stopped.
I know whenever it comes to be really dysfunctional and vile and base and hostile on screen, I'm good at that.
If your project has real substance, ultimately the money will follow you like a common cur in the street with its tail between its legs.
We are just a blip. I found it very interesting when Clive [Oppenheimer] interviewed the Ethiopian scientists and asked them, "Do we have another 100,000 years?" In their calculation, mankind will be entering a very critical phrase a thousand years from now.
I have nothing against 3D films but I do not need to see them.
There are specific times where film noir is a natural concomitant of the mood. When there's insecurity, collapse of financial systems - that's where film noir always hits fertile ground.
North Korea is not an exception. Even there, where you think it would be completely sober, they have the myth of their revolution being connected to the volcano.
