I have to make what I see, whether it's a painting, a table, or a movie, or it's like a death and what would be the point of that?

Directors who have inspired me include Billy Wilder, Federico Fellini, lngmar Bergman, John Ford, Orson Welles, Werner Herzog, Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, Francis Ford Coppola and Ernst Lubitsch. In art school, I studied painters like Edward Hopper, who used urban motifs, Franz Kafka is my favorite novelist. My approach to film stems from my art background, as I go beyond the story to the sub-conscious mood created by sound and images.

Eraserhead is my most spiritual movie. No one understands when I say that, but it is.

I have a profound admiration for Fellini. I met him lately and he's just fantastic. I feel very close to him even though he's very Italian. But his films could have been made in every country. When I say, I feel close to him, then also because we're both born on January 20th.

I don't really follow television so much, but in the old days there was a certain way TV was, and it wasn't really like cinema. I don't know how many ways it was different or the same, but it was not quite like cinema. Now, cinema can happen on television.

I always say Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is my biggest influence. But for painters, I like many, many painters, but I love Francis Bacon the most, and Edward Hopper.

Some people grew up in the '70s, powerful, beautiful memories of the '70s which to me is one of the worst decades. It has something to do with that. Has something to with the birth of rock 'n' roll, and something to do with those American cars. an incredible design. There was so much optimism at that time and it must leak into the process.