Directing, to me, starts even before we get to the set. Directing is a fluid, an abstract thing. It's not done only purely in the moment. It's an idea that you plant before. It's a location that you show. It's something I whisper in someone's ear. It's a freeform thing. It only takes me a week to write the script, but it's years that you're thinking about it. The execution is really the fast part.

After 100 years, films should be getting really complicated. The novel has been reborn about 400 times, but it's like cinema is stuck in the birth canal.

A scientist shouldn't be asked to judge the economic and moral value of his work. All we should ask the scientist to do is find the truth and then not keep it from anyone.

I never cared about making one coherent masterpiece with a conventional narrative. I always wanted my movies to have images falling from all directions in a vaudevillian way. If you didn't like what was happening in one scene, you could just snooze through it until the next scene. That was the thing about vaudeville: You didn't have to worry about the beginning and ends of these things.

For me, making a movie is kind of like vomiting. Not that film is like vomit, but more like this mass of ideas and thoughts that you have and just have to put them out there. It's not even about making perfect sense - it's more about making perfect nonsense. I don't do too much soul-searching or self-analysis. I just enjoy making things.

What I remember myself from films, and what I love about films, is specific scenes and characters.

I like working with family and friends and people I admire. All my movies are filled with family members of some capacity. I think it means more when you have a personal relationship with someone.