The minute you have more than one voice, you have more possibilities opening up. You have all the molecules in all of those bodies and their make up interacting.

You will never see'Altman's Great Film of the Seventies: The Director's Cut' because you have never seen a film of mine that wasn't the director's cut. I have never permitted it.

I'll give you the same advice I give my children: Never take advice from anybody.

I want to see something that I've never seen before, so how can I tell that actor what that is? I'm not trying to construct a document or situation that is what I want, because what I want is something new to me.

Titanic I thought was the most dreadful piece of work I've ever seen in my entire life. Another film that I think is equally bad was American Beauty. So badly acted and directed. But people like that.

The artist and the multitude are natural enemies. They always will be, both ways. The artist is an enemy of the multitude, and the multitude is the enemy of the artist. And when the disguise comes off and they're both standing facing one another, they're just there at odds end.

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.