I felt no obligation to bow to any 21st Century political correctness. What I did feel an obligation to do was to take the 21stCentury viewers and physically transport them back to the ante bellum South in 1858, in Mississippi, and have them look at America for what it was back then. And I wanted it to be shocking.

Everybody always talks about the science fiction genre, in particular, which always makes me think about people in spaceships. I can appreciate that, but that's not really where I think my dramatist aspect lies.

ou know, if you want to see jackbooting Nazis in movies, you've got to watch American movies made at that time.

I've always wanted to work with Warren Beatty.

If I've made it a little easier for artists to work in violence, great! I've accomplished something.

There`s only one list that`s more illustrious than the list of directors who won the Palme d`Or. It`s the list of directors who didn`t.

A movie doesn't have to do everything. A movie just has to do a couple of things. If it does those things well and gives you a cool night at the movies, an emotion, that's good enough.