We are seeing entertainment become politics and we're seeing people acting out in ways that are extremely violent and destabilizing. No rules apply. We're in an era of no rules now, it seems.

I love the act of writing. I like the quiet, internal aspect of it. If I lost track of that, I couldn't direct the same way. I couldn't be a director for-hire; it's just not my nature.

I think any filmmaker will tell you when they wandered from theater to theater to watch their prints, it was disheartening to see the poor levels of light and the disrespect for films that existed in certain theater chains. It was always inconsistent. And in the lab, too, the photochemical process was very difficult to watch, because sometimes they were shipping prints that you didn't even know were two points off or three points off. We suffered greatly to make these films, and they'd be out-of-focus, with the sound too low.

I want my children to have access to something that looks beyond what I call the tyranny of now. You read the paper, everyone talks about that thing [in the news] that day, and all the subconscious really important stuff that's going on is being neglected. The beauty of history is that historians have the ability to find patterns, the big picture. When you make a movie, you try to find that. I'm doing in the cinema what historians try to do in their own media.

I think everyone has the same question on their mind: Is the glass half-full or half-empty?

I am a storyteller, and I do love ideas.

Every movie requires its own style. Just be honest to the story. Tell the story in the best possible way that is different, exciting and original.