It serves the purpose of not serving a purpose, surely quite a valid one.

English culture is highly literary-based.

Works of art are never finished, just stopped.

There is visual illiteracy with text-oriented films like bloody 'Harry Potter' and 'Lord of the Rings.'.

I always think that if you deal with extremely emotional, even melodramatic, subject matter, as I constantly do, the best way to handle those situations is at a sufficient remove. It's like a doctor and a nurse and a casualty situation. You can't help the patient and you can't help yourself by emoting. And I don't think cinema is intended for therapy, so I object also to that huge, massive manipulation which is perpetrated on the public.

Bill Viola is worth ten Scorseses.

Since Caesar, we know his historians are liars. The good writers get read. Bad history doesn't get read.