As someone who grew up in a house where there wasn't a lot of talking, I'm used to just looking at the world. And in general I often feel like I just don't understand what's happening. That everybody else does, but I don't quite get it. Mike Mills More Quotes by Mike Mills More Quotes From Mike Mills Grief and memory go together. After someone dies, that's what you're left with. And the memories are so slippery yet so rich. Mike Mills grief together memories I would hate to think I'm promoting sadness as an aesthetic. But I grew up in not just a family but a town and a culture where sadness is something you're taught to feel shame about. You end up chronically desiring what can be a very sentimental idea of love and connection. A lot of my work has been about trying to make a space for sadness. Mike Mills sadness hate thinking My dad's gay experiences really had a very positive influence on me and my straight relationships - how to better accept all the weirdness and ambiguity and ups and downs and paradoxes. I knew from the beginning I was writing about love. Mike Mills dad gay writing The littlest thing can have the strongest connection when you're grieving. Your Proustian, poetic nerve is turned up to ten. Mike Mills connections nerves grieving We never did things as we were supposed to do. That was part of our ethic. We did what felt right to us, not what someone told us we should do. Mike Mills ethics felt should Sadness is a super important thing not to be ashamed about but to include in our lives. One of the bigger problems with sadness or depression is there's so much shame around it. If you have it you're a failure. You are felt as being very unattractive. Mike Mills unattractive sadness important As a son of a man who pretended to be one thing for 33 years of my life and then was another thing, the questions of 'what is real' and 'what is not real' are very blurrily vivid to me. Mike Mills real men son Actors are pretending for you, but they're not lying. They are not putting on a guise instead of themselves. They are finding things inside that they have experienced. Mike Mills pretending actors lying My graffiti really comes more from a May '68, sort of Situationist vibe than the hip-hop world. I think a real graffiti artist would find me a poser. Mike Mills artist real thinking Humans are vulnerable, messy little animals and that's normal. And all I want to do is make a space for that in my films. Mike Mills space want animal There is a drunkenness to grief, which is good. Mike Mills drunkenness grief There's great sadness and life doesn't work out like you would want, on a lot of levels, but there's no need to feel all alone. This happens to everybody, so there's no self-pity. This is the ride that humans are on, and all of it is essential for our natural part of it. Mike Mills work-out sadness self There's some movies I watch, they're kind of like my anti-anxiety pill, my anti-depressant pill. I watch them at least once or twice a month probably. And I never stop learning from them as a filmmaker. Mike Mills pills anxiety watches Being a good Hans Haacke student, part of his influence on me is that there's no difference between a gallery show and a film - or even an ad and a T-shirt-in terms of cultural legitimacy. They're just different contexts in which to have some sort of communication. Mike Mills differences communication different I pretty much believe that a film is a film and when an audience watches a film, they finish it. Mike Mills film watches believe I'm into people's emotional lives and relationships and the complications of living. That's my turf. Mike Mills complication emotional people My experience, with both my parents, is that grief has a lot of down, sad things, but I was also really emotionally raw, in the first year after each of them passed. Flowers smelled more intensely, my relationships were hotter, and I was more willing to risk. I was going for it a lot more. I was 'unsober' and I wasn't playing by my rules. Mike Mills grief flower years I was so happy with my bow ties from the last kickstarted project that I'm back for more. Mike Mills bows lasts ties If you ask me, the place that a story happens is as equal character. It's almost like an ecological viewpoint: These people are living in this piece of land, and in this piece of land in this time this is possible. For me, I almost think location first. It's time first - what year is it - then where are we, and then who is in it. Mike Mills land character thinking OK, so my parents were married in 1955 and my mom knew my dad was gay and my dad knew he was gay and so I was, like, 'Why in the heck did you get married?' Like, what was going on? What was that time? It's like this crazy paradox that my whole life is based on, or my family's based on. So I spent a lot of time trying to understand '55. Mike Mills dad crazy mom
