Todd Solondz Quotes
(On his movie "Happiness"): "It`s not for everyone and it`s not designed for everyone and I don`t think I`ll ever write anything that`s designed to appeal to everyone. If you want sympathetic characters it`s easy enough to do, you just give someone cancer and of course we`ll all feel horribly sad and sorry. You make anyone a victim and people feel that way. But that`s not of interest to me as a filmmaker or as a writer. I may be accused of a certain kind of misanthropy but I think I could argue the opposite. I think that it`s only by acknowledging the flaws, the foibles, the failings and so forth of who we are that we can in fact fully embrace the all of who we are. People say I`m cruel or that the film`s cruel, but I think rather it exposes the cruelty and I think that certainly the capacity for cruelty is the most difficult, the most painful thing for any of us to acknowledge. That we are at all capable. And yet I think that it exists as much as the capacity for kindness and it`s only the best of us that are able to suppress, sublimate, re-channel and so forth these baser instincts, but I see them to some degree at play as a regular part of life in very subtle ways and not so subtle ways. I don`t think that after the seventh grade that these impulses evaporate. So from my perspective I`m trying to be honest with what I see and what I`ve experienced and what I believe is true to our nature."
Narcissism and self-deception are survival mechanisms without which many of us might just jump off a bridge.
The funny thing is, strangers still seem to feel comfortable coming up to me and saying things, but now usually it`s because they recognize me, and they say nice things.
With Storytelling, at least, it`s explicit: this is what the censors say American citizens, no matter what age, are not permitted to see, even though it can be seen by other people all over the world. I suppose you could call it a political statement.
I mean, I don`t want to sound - of course it`s very nice, people come up and say appreciative things about my work. But the loss, in terms of privacy and anonymity, is no small thing to me.
To be honest, I am often unsettled by the responses some people have had to my movies, and that includes many people who like them.
Some people will of course accuse me of misanthropy and cynicism. I can`t celebrate humanity but I`m not out to indict it either. I just want to expose certain truths.
I`ll just say, you hope you have an imagination at work you hope it has the support of your life experience and what you`ve observed and so forth.
There aren`t any other countries in the world where they kill abortionists and bomb clinics. To be an abortionist in the United States is like to be a fireman or a policeman, to take on a heroic profession, but of course, it puts your life on the line. Regardless of one`s political convictions, you have to respect the integrity of someone who is willing to risk his life to perform this kind of procedure. You can make a good living doing other sorts of procedures.
When I want to show the kind of meanness people are capable of, to make it believable I find I have to tone it down. It`s in real life that people are over the top.
So far, at least, I haven`t found a way to tell my kind of stories without making them both sad and funny.
Many people think my movies come out of the deepest feelings of bitterness and cynicism and hostility and not out of any positive feelings at all.
It is true that the movie is perhaps my most politically-charged. The story is thrust into motion by the idea of what do you do when your 13 year old daughter comes home pregnant. And not only is she pregnant, but she wants to keep the baby.
One thing I want to say: I don`t like victim stories and I don`t write them.
And that`s just what I`m saying. I would never want to be like certain people, who change the way they dress, go out in disguise, wear a big floppy hat and dark shades. I would hate that.
I`m just unfortunate that I have this job I hate, I suppose. I keep thinking I`ve got to find a new career and maybe I will. But for now, this is all I`ve got. I haven`t found a good alternative yet.
All I mean is, I`m not the kind of audience comedy directors want at a test screening because I seldom laugh, and if I do, it`s not very loud. That doesn`t mean I don`t like the movie.
Usually the audience has no idea that the censored version of whatever movie they`re watching isn`t the original.
When I was making Storytelling, I couldn`t watch while the violent sex scene between the student and the professor was being shot. It was too intense.
Casting is everything. If you get the right people they make you look good.
I mean, there are many other directors who are probably both more skilled and excited to adapt novels or work within certain genre conventions. I`d like to do that kind of work someday, but for better or worse I`m too drawn by my own material.
In American films, this period of life is not treated seriously. You have either the cute and cuddly Disney kid or the evil devil monster. For me it`s fertile territory - middle class kids growing up in the suburbs.
Even talking about the nature of this war, and Iraq and the Middle East, it`s very difficult even to have a conversation. Anything that veers away from the official line, there`s a hysteria that pops in.
Optimism is not inherently a superior way of viewing the world. Certainly doctors will say it might be better for one`s physical health to be an optimist. But, morally speaking it may not be appropriate in certain circumstances.
In particular, people have trouble understanding where I stand in relation to my characters, and very often this gets reduced to me making vicious fun of them.
As Mark Weiner puts it, whether you gain 50 pounds or lose 50 pounds, whether you have a sex change operation for that matter, that it doesn`t matter, that there is some part of ourselves that we cannot escape.
I don`t have children but if I did and my child wanted to act, I`d be fine with him acting in my movie where I feel a certain dignity is accorded. But I would never let my child act in a commercial for the Gap or Banana Republic or for some other consumer goods corporation. That would be the obscenity.
When I`m asked who my audience is, I say someone with an open mind, which is not a vacant one and sometimes a liberal mind is not the same thing as an open one.
A palindrome is a word or pattern that instead of developing in different directions it folds in on itself so that the beginning and end mirror each other, that they are the same.
I saw Vera Drake and Mike Leigh is a masterful filmmaker. I think it`s indisputable. He works with actors like no one else. It`s beautifully shot and beautifully played. And yet at the same time, I just want to scream! I say, would it have been a sin for her to take money for a job well done? Does she have to be sanctified? I can`t take it, just how all the liberals, we all go in to see the movie and in a sense it turns us all into martyrs for the good fight. But it`s clearly not an examination of the ethical nature and so forth, it`s just a given that this is the good fight and we are martyrs for this cause. There`s another movie, a lovely film, wonderfully directed, Maria Full of Grace. There`s a scene in the movie where you have this 17-year-old pregnant girl in Queens and she sees Women`s Health Services, and she goes there. What`s the purpose of the scene? All it does is tell us that the baby is okay. I just want to scream! She stays in American, 17, pregnant, no money, no friends, doesn`t speak the language. I mean, really, the only thing she`s equipped to do is be a prostitute. To me, it`s just the falseness of that stay-on-in-America, land-of-hope and so forth, the falseness just makes me want to scream. It`s faux-liberal, in fact. I guess it`s just being patted on the back, being told, `You`re doing the right thing.` There`s no questioning. There`s no examination. There`s no stopping to think.
There`s good laughter and bad laughter. As long as they`re not laughing at the expense of any of these characters, it`s OK. My films are comedies, but they`re sad comedies and this is the saddest of all.
I don`t like telling people where I stand on this, although I`m surprised anybody wonders. I suppose if I say I`m pro-choice, if I make that clear, it let`s the audience off the hook, then they can sort of relax. Okay, it`s alright he`s pro-choice then I can enjoy this.
The ability to take pleasure in one`s life is a skill and is a kind of intelligence. So intelligence is a hard thing to evaluate and it manifests itself in so many different ways. I do think the ability to know how to live a life and not be miserable is a sign of that.
People can`t help how they look.
When part of what you`re trying to get at is the truth hidden under a taboo, or when you want to nail a hypocrisy, laughter is a very useful tool. I want to show the painful side of existence, but there is no question I also want to make people laugh.
To be an abortionist today in the States is, to my mind, very heroic. Who wants to put their lives on the line? You get assassinated, there are bombs in the clinics. There are so many other easier ways to make a living. You put yourself in a very vulnerable place if you do choose that calling.
I admit there`s an element of brutality in all my work - it`s part of the truth about human existence I always want to explore - but the last thing I`m trying to do is put on some kind of freak show, inviting people to get off on other people`s pain and humiliation.
But you`re right, I did think about acting more and then decided against it.
Like everything, what compels one to put pen to paper is a great question.
Storytelling is the only studio movie where the censorship is perfectly clear, the only studio movie with a big red box covering up a shot. I take pride in that - and, of course, in having avoided the fate of Eyes Wide Shut.
Part of it has to do with this business of being approached in public. I have a distinctive look - it`s partly the glasses I wear - and people seem to remember me once they`ve seen me.
Well, so far, at least, my own ideas always take priority over those of other writers. As long as the well doesn`t run dry, I imagine this will be the case.
Some directors hardly talk to the actors at all.
But anonymity is very important to me, and I don`t want to be recognized in public more than I already am.
