The Oscars demonstrate the will of the people to control and judge those they have elected to stand above them (much, perhaps, as in bygone days, an election celebrated the same).

You can't write about history without writing about politics at some point. History is about movements of people. 'What is criminality and what is government' is a theme that runs through every history.

Make the audience wonder what's going on by putting them in the same position as the protagonist.

"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.

There's something in me that just wants to create dialogue.

It's hard for a Jew of my generation, an American Jew, who is philo-Zionistic, not to romanticize Israel.

There is a profound and ineradicable taint of antisemitism in the British.