About Mike Figgis: Michael "Mike" Figgis is an English film director, screenwriter, and composer.
The function of camera movement is to assist the storytelling. That's all it is. It cannot be there just to demonstrate itself.
I made my first film on 16mm. Then I began using 35mm. I began working in Hollywood. And I began to really understand how films were made by professionals. I have to say I wasn't very impressed.
I started using film as part of live theatre performance - what used to be called performance art - and I became intrigued by film.
In discussing the process with the actors, I made it clear to them that they could improvise but that the sum total of their improvisation needed to impart certain plot points, and schematic material.
I play piano and trumpet. I studied classical guitar.
But I don't have such a strong desire to need to get away from filmmaking.
It's difficult working with very rich actors, because inevitably they become a little spoilt, and the managers and agents tend to control things more than is healthy.
I'm a huge fan of world cinema, because each country uses cinema in a very individual way.
There's nothing I've done which I'm ashamed of or I thought was actually bad.
I had no plans to be a director.
Then I became interested in drama, and almost by accident, I drifted into film.
I might have a guitar or a piano on set to play something for the actors.
You can do really slow movements with it, like zooming in for a minute and a half. The audience isn't aware that the camera has moved, but there's subconscious tension there.
The world is an infinitely fascinating, tragic and humorous place.
I want the score to have a really big voice.
There's a sadness to the human condition that I think music is good for. It gives a counterpoint to the visual beauty, and adds depth to pictures that they wouldn't have if the music wasn't there.
In a way, the history of jazz's development is a small mirror of classical music's development through the centuries. Now jazz is a living form of original music, while classical music has gotten to the end of its cycle in terms of exploring its form...
I've spent my life hearing people trying to apologize for music.
I would certainly say that films like Time Code and the Loss of Sexual Innocence were far more rewarding to me in terms of being able to move forward as a filmmaker.
Films take up so much time, and with theatre, you do have to plan a period of time that you can be free.
