"Jonze had never written a movie script before, but to him this seemed no impediment. “I never knew how to do anything before I did it, really,” he reasons. “Those are the situations that I find the most exciting. It’s most fun just to decide, ‘Okay, I’m going to choreograph this. I’ve never choreographed before, I’ve never really danced before, but I know what kind of dancing I like, so I’ll do that.’ ” It seems to him that such resolutions are less leaps of grandiose self-confidence than a way to reprise the unworried and unfettered creativity of childhood. “Like, if you were going to make a fort in your backyard,” he says, “you’re not going to go, like, hire someone to make your fort or go buy plans. You’re just going to have an idea for it and go make your fort."

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Spike Jonze Will Eat You Up: Movies + TV: GQ : And another choice quote: “It goes back to the whole testing-numbers thing, like, ‘We’ve got to get this many people to like this character’ and ‘this many people to think this’ and ‘this many people to feel this.’ I’ve never made a movie like that. I want anyone to feel anything that they want to feel. You can like a character, you can not like a character. Think something’s funny, think something’s sad, think something’s creepy. That’s not interesting, to make a movie where you try and make everyone feel the same thing, everyone think the same thing. You make a movie that is about what you want it to be about and let people have their reaction to it.”

His attitude and his films make him my favorite contemporary American director.

Tags: film filmmaking spikejonze wherethewildthingsare