We strain to listen to the ghosts and echoes of our inexpressibly wise past, and we have an obligation to maintain these places, to provide these sanctuaries, so that people may be in the presence of forces larger than those of the moment.

History isn't really about the past - settling old scores. It's about defining the present and who we are.

I can understand why some of these drummers and bass players become cult figures with all of their equipment and the incredible amount of technique they have. But there's very little that I think satisfies you intellectually or emotionally.

I'm a filmmaker. I'm an artist. I've chosen to work in history the way someone might choose to work in still lifes or landscapes.

Filmmaking is essentially about entertainment, but it's amazing to realize that it has this other muscle that could actually help. Do you know what I mean? People permit entertainment to wash over them, but every once and a while, entertainment - and this is entertaining - also galvanizes something else and that would be a really good thing to have happen in this case.

I have come to the realization that history is not a fixed thing, a collection of precise dates, facts and events (even cogent commencement quotes) that add up to a quantifiable, certain, confidently known, truth. It is a mysterious and malleable thing.

I enjoy total creative control right now. Nobody tells me to make it longer, shorter, better, sexier, more violent, whatever.