I have a sixth sense for casting. I just have to see and talk to the actors. I never make tests. I like to work with crowds. I like to get the principals in a crowd. When they do, something else comes off, something special.

A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.

My Advice to Young Filmmakers is This: Don't Follow Trends. Start Them!

Man's greatest advances are weapon advances. Culture follows from weaponry, we are militant like the animals and birds - defending our homes. No matter how far back you go in history, along with the struggle for existence, along with the survival necessities - kill or be killed, eat or be eaten - there is a hunger for something spiritual. He invents God, prayers, incantations to something above him. Why? This is not brought out - this is not weapon culture.

When you get to political machines that can control a state, then you're really into organized crime - almost. You're fighting a political mafia.

Man must be able to recover, to win out, triumph over adversity. And I don't mean just the little adversity like paying his room rent or something. But those deep, deep human adversities because something he has faith in has turned to ashes. Where someone he loves turns out to be just another joke. You get to the point of suicide. But you can bounce back - they can't completely destroy you.

No saint, no pope, no general, no sultan, has ever had the power that a filmmaker has; the power to talk to hundreds of millions of people for two hours in the dark.