The Exorcist' is amazing because it recognizes that silences can be as powerful as sound effects.

If you're going to succeed, you've got to be like one of those punch-drunk fighters in the old Warner Bros. boxing pictures: too stupid to fall down, you just keep slugging and stay on your feet.

To me, length is an artificial and arbitrary factor in a film.

I've never been a big fan of the music-video style of editing movies that crept in the last few decades. I like stuff that's able to take its time.

A director shouldn't get in the way of the movie, the story should.

Boy, I'd hate to shoot on tape or disc or whatever the hell they're talking about. I love film.

Some of us have great original ideas and some of us depend on adaptations.