I don't think it's very useful to open wide the door for young artists; the ones who break down the door are more interesting.

I would not have made any of my films or written scripts such as Taxi Driver had it not been for Ingmar Bergman, What he has left is a legacy greater than any other director.... I think the extraordinary thing that Bergman will be remembered for, other than his body of work, was that he probably did more than anyone to make cinema a medium of personal and introspective value.

Let's just shoot in black and white. Don't explain why. Have no reason for it. Just do it because it's interesting.

There's no escape. I'm God's only man.

Because many of the films I've made have had an intellectualedge, it's harder for me to lie. It's harder for me to go to peoplewith money and say I don't care about art, all I care about iscommerce; all I really want to do is make money.

Words are a completely different form of expression. The word P-E-N-I-S is an entirely different form of communication than a photograph of the same thing. H

Film noir is not a genre. It is not defined, as are the western and gangster genres, by conventions of setting and conflict, but rather by the more subtle qualities of tone and mood. It is a film 'noir', as opposed to the possible variants of film gray or film off-white.