"Based on a true story" is a come-on, the aesthetic equivalent of "no loan request refused." For, at best, the creator has fashioned a film based on his understanding of, interpretation of, and reduction of the report of an actual occurrence.

I was fortunate enough to have a rambling youth.

The work of the director is the work of constructing the shot list from the script.

The audience requires not information but drama.

Obama is a tyrant the same way FDR was a tyrant. He has a view of presidential power that states: the government is in control of the country, and the president is in charge of the government. He's taken an imperial view of the presidency.

We respond to a drama to that extent to which it corresponds to our dream life.

I love working on a typewriter - the rhythm, the sound; it's like playing the piano, which I do, too.