People tend to forget that the word "history" contains the word "story".

I subscribe to William Faulkner's' view that history is not just about what we were before but who we are now.

People tend to forget that the word "history" contains the word "story".

I think we continually need to understand how important an event the war was - how defining, how central to who we are. Everything that came before it led up to it, and everything of importance to this country - at least up to 1940 - was a consequence of it. Even now there's an echo of the war, however faint, in almost everyone's life.

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.

Jazz is a very accurate, curiously accurate accompaniment to 20th century America.

I record all of my music with authentic instruments in a studio before we start editing, doing many, many versions. The music shapes the film as we edit so it has an organic relationship to the content.