I Am From the Future”: A Sometimes Contentious Conversation With ‘The Neon Demon’ Director Nicolas Winding Refn & Composer Cliff Martinez

But as long as there’s something happening and getting a reaction it’s worthwhile?

I don’t think people quite realize how difficult it is to create a film or music that is divisive or controversial. You have to have a big enough audience that is in love with it for the controversy [to exist]. For the people at Cannes who booed it, you have to have enough people cheering it for that to happen. If you make a shitty film, it just dies a swift, miserable death. You really have to burn a lot of calories to create something that people will want to talk about. When I was in the Red Hot Chili Peppers, we tried really hard to be Sex Pistols 2. That was the birth of us coming on stage with nothing on except a strategically placed tube sock. Even then, people found us endearing, because everywhere we played the club owner would say “You’re going to do the sock thing, right?” It was a real crowdpleaser. So to be commercial or uncommercial, controversial or divisive, to make a big stink with a film is an accomplishment that we should all be proud of. -Cliff Martinez

Read the full interview by Jacob Hall at /Film