A Quote by Spike Lee
I'm an independent filmmaker with complete creative control of my films. I hire who I want. I have final cut. But at the same time, I go directly to Hollywood for financing and distribution. I find it's best for me to work within the Hollywood system.
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If I was American, I think I'd live in New York, because I like that East Coast mentality. There's nothing wrong with Hollywood. If you want to be a big time filmmaker, you should go to Hollywood.
Independent films are where you really get to cut your teeth and have some fun and do the things that mainstream Hollywood doesn't want to do.
I do not make films which are prescriptive, and I do not make films that are conclusive. You do not walk out of my films with a clear feeling about what is right and wrong. They're ambivalent. You walk away with work to do. My films are a sort of investigation. They ask questions . . .. Sometimes I hear that some [Hollywood] studio is interested in me. Then they discover that this is the guy who works with no script, that there is no casting discussion, no interference, that I have the final cut, and that does it.
In Hollywood, they make movies like they make washing machines. It's a business. In Europe, the films are considered art. No producer would ever tell a director where to cut a film or how to re-write the script. I love Hollywood, but all of the time I have to go back to Europe.
I don't care about Hollywood films. I'm not against Hollywood films, you know? Hollywood films were very good before, in the 1950s.
I've made a number of independent films that didn't receive theatrical distribution, that a lot of people haven't heard of, and as a result, I've conditioned myself to go into small independent films with the expectation that they will not, and therefore, I have to find my reward elsewhere.
I came out to Hollywood when I was just 18, and my dad, he was really into Hollywood and theater and art, and I guess growing up, he exposed me to a lot of culture, and I just started making Super-8 films in high school and decided I wanted to be a filmmaker.
I like the direct contact. I want a lot of people that only know me through the mass media to learn more about what I'm doing, and to know that I'm an independent filmmaker and I'm not part of the Hollywood system. I'm coming from where they started. I'm not coming from a family with a lot of money.
The good part of what comics trains you to do is it trains you - especially if you've worked in mainstream comics like Marvel and DC, or if you're just doing your own independent comics - to compartmentalize things and work on multiple things at the same time. And that's a skill that is incredibly handy in Hollywood, because within the first year that you get here, you realize there's a reason why every successful person in Hollywood has like seven or eight projects up in the air at any point.
Being a filmmaker in the digital platform has given me complete creative control. I can make what I want, when I want. I don't have to wait to book an audition.
I still hate making pictures! And I don't like Hollywood any better. I detest the limelight and love simplicity, and in Hollywood the only thing that matters is the hullabaloo of fame. If Hollywood will let me alone to find my way without forcing me and rushing me into things, I probably will change my feelings about it. But at present Hollywood seems utterly horrible and interfering and consuming. Which is why I want to leave it as soon as I am able.
I think, honestly, that the word 'indie' is a false gimmick. 'Independent' used to mean a movie that was financed outside corporate Hollywood, but a lot of what gets called independent these days is totally produced within that system. And there's nothing wrong with that.
People say I've gone against Hollywood, but I've tried to be independent within Hollywood, tried to be my own person.
He convinced me - Fred Freeman - to go to Hollywood and we went to Hollywood to write sitcoms. Joey Bishop actually paid my way to Hollywood.
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.
Working with David Cronenberg or Darren Aronofsky or even Steven Soderbergh isn't really like a typical Hollywood movie. These are true artists, and have a certain amount of freedom when they work, and they're more like independent filmmakers making their way through big studios. I still don't feel like I've been part of the stereotypical Hollywood system.
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