There was not a lot of dialogue. The titles were just to keep you up. It's the visual stimulation that hits the audience. That's the reason for film. Otherwise, we might as well turn the light out and call it radio.

I like audiences to crane their necks.

If George W. Bush is elected president, I'm leaving for France.

I never knew what I wanted, except that it was something I hadn't seen before.

It's all just one film to me. Just different chapters.

If something works for you, you continue to do it. I did a bunch of pictures for 20th Century Fox when Alan Ladd was over there, but I set the budgets so low that they'd approve and I'd deliver the film. They would have no say in it, which is the kind of arrangement I liked.

Most of my films I call arena films. I deal with a confined area -- an arena -- and I try to cover every aspect of it.