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.

I like audiences to crane their necks.

[M*A*S*H] didn't get released by FOX, it escaped.

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.

Happy endings are absolutely ludicrous, they're not true at all. We see the guy carry the girl across the threshold and everybody lives happily ever after -- that's bullshit. Three weeks later he's beating her up and she's suing for divorce and he's got cancer.

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.

Your own ego is the only trap that I think you can fall into.