Doug Aitken is a renowned multimedia artist who has worked with video installation, sculpture, and photography. In 2006, he published Broken Screen: 26 Conversations. The book compiles conversations with artists in which they discuss their desires to work outside of conventional linear narrative forms. Aitken engages his fellow artists—including Werner Herzog, Ed Ruscha, Robert Altman, Kenneth Anger, Claire Denis, Amos Vogel, and Alejandro Jodorowsky—in discussion, as opposed to critical interviews. Below are some choice quotes:
“I almost feel like the process of filmmaking is a performance itself. The act of filmmaking becomes an extension of the performance on-screen.—Matthew Barney
“…I got fired again and again because people like Jack Warner, the cofounder of Warner Brothers, would say, ‘who has actors all talking at the same time?’ Well I haven’t had many experiences in real life where people don’t talk all at the same time. People don’t wait around for each other to shut up before they speak.”—Robert Altman
“…the notion of a beginning and an end is a rational formulation that I don’t use anymore. For me, life is not continuous. If I have a beginning and end in one of my films, its not a real beginning or end. These things don’t exist.”—Alejandro Jodorowsky
