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.

One of the things I really like about Ford's films is how there is always a focus on the way characters live, and not just the male heroes.

I think my expectations for myself are much more severe and much more direct. You can't work on a film for six years without being your own toughest critic. So you can't really be distracted by the expectations based on your previous performance.

We're having a hard time understanding where jazz is going. What happened to jazz?

I don't think that there has been a film that I've done that hasn't been influenced by libraries and archives.

The flame is not out, but it is flickering.

You can learn as much about the history from reading about the present as you can vice versa, that is learning about the present through history, which is what I do for a living.