I know that I come from mid-20th century America, urban, specifically downtown New York, specifically an Italian-American area, Roman Catholic - that's who I am. And a part of what I know is there's a decency to people who tried to make a living in the kind of world that was around us and also the Skid Row area of the Bowery; it impressed me.

I was rather shaken by all the green trees. I always am. It gets me. I don't want to be funny about it but I am. I loved seeing all the westerns, but I had asthma and couldn't go anywhere, but I loved watching them in Technicolor and seeing the cowboys and the landscapes of Monument Valley and you'd see the forests of the Anthony Mann films and think, 'wow, that's fantastic', but I could never go there!

Very often I've known people who wouldn't say a word to each other, but they'd go to see movies together and experience life that way.

What the Dalai Lama had to resolve was whether to stay in Tibet or leave. He wanted to stay, but staying would have meant the total destruction of Tibet, because he would have died and that would have ripped the heart out of his people.

I know that I come from mid-20th century America, urban, specifically downtown New York, specifically an Italian-American area, Roman Catholic - that's who I am. And a part of what I know is there's a decency to people who tried to make a living in the kind of world that was around us and also the Skid Row area of the Bowery; it impressed me.

I love studying Ancient History and seeing how empires rise and fall, sowing the seeds of their own destruction.

I'm often asked by younger filmmakers, 'Why do I need to look at old movies?' I've made a number of pictures in the last 20 years and the response I have to give them is that I still consider myself a student. The more pictures I've made in 20 years, the more I realize I really don't know. And I'm always looking for something or someone that I could learn from. I tell the younger filmmakers, and the young students, that do it like painters used to do—that painters do—study the old masters, enrich your palette, expand the canvas. There's always so much more to learn.