It's interesting that these themes of crime and political corruption are always relevant.

My father had this mythological sense of the old New York, and he used to tell me stories about these old gangs, particularly the Forty Thieves in the Fourth Ward.

More than ninety percent of directing a picture is the right casting

Death comes in a flash, and that's the truth of it, the person's gone in less than 24 frames of film.

The cinema began with a passionate, physical relationship between celluloid and the artists and craftsmen and technicians who handled it, manipulated it, and came to know it the way a lover comes to know every inch of the body of the beloved. No matter where the cinema goes, we cannot afford to lose sight of its beginnings.

The problem with anger is that it's so consuming. You've got to take it easy on yourself at a certain point.

I prefer people who don't get caught, and if they do get caught, I prefer people who don't give in.