I was saying as a joke the other day that I love film editing, I know how to cut a picture, I think I know how to shoot it, but I don't know how to light it. And I realize it's because I didn't grow up with light. I grew up in tenements.

There must be people who remember World War II and the Holocaust who can help us get out of this rut.

I certainly wasn't able to get it when I was a kid growing up on the Lower East Side; it was very hard at that time for me to balance what I really believed was the right way to live with the violence I saw all around me - I saw too much of it among the people I knew.

The most important thing is, how can I move forward towards something that I can't articulate, that is new in storytelling with moving images and sound?

A lot of what I'm obsessed with is the relationship and the dynamics between people and the family, particularly brothers and their father.

The most important thing is the script.

I also saw the Dalai Lama a few times.