Mike Mills
Mike Mills
Michael Edward "Mike" Millsis an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and composer who was a founding member of the alternative rock band R.E.M. Though known primarily as a bass guitarist, backing vocalist, and pianist, his musical repertoire also includes keyboards, guitar, and percussion instruments. He contributed to a majority of the band's musical compositions...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth17 December 1958
CityOrange County, CA
CountryUnited States of America
There's nothing like a movie. It's the one art form that can really make me cry, and the thing is, we're all filmmakers. We're all creating movies in our heads all the time on our internal projection screens. To have the experience of playing out that movie, and making it real, it was very moving... in fact, I was crying my eyes out last night because I was thinking of how special the whole thing was,
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.
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.
No one leaves the edit room thinking, 'Yeah, I nailed that one!' Everyone I know goes into their first premiere or their first screening thinking, 'I screwed up so bad. I'm sorry, I messed up.' It's just a real common feeling.
Film is endlessly just beyond your reach. I think that's what I love so much about it.
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.
The whole set was very intense, ... Lou and Kelli have some weird thing with each other.
There's some things that you learn as you're shooting, and as you're editing that are key, because when you start you don't have the brain that can finish it. You don't really know what it is, and that's the key job; figuring out what you actually have, not what you're dreaming of having.
Everyone talks to their dog, and then in your mind the dog talks back. A talking dog can provide the words that a stunted protagonist finds difficult to muster.
I think I make films to help bolster and feed the part of me that wants to remain in a positive relationship with the world and to engage in it. So hopefully in non-sentimental ways, I'm trying to make something that helps make me happy.
We never give up until the legislative session is over.
I am definitely writing letters to lots of directors in my mind when I'm making a film. I'm chasing Woody Allen and Godard and Milos Forman and all these people.
I'd known Elliot for a while, ... He was kind of 'off the Earth' on the heroin thing.
Shooting a film is like a kismet quest. You have thirty days and you need magic to happen. So that's why I wear suits. I'm praying to the gods, and I'm doing everything I can to respect the powers of the world.