It's a creative enterprise, just like art, just like painting, music. Creating something can be done in different categories, so to do it in film is just another expression, which is great. Because it translates so well because so many people see the work, if you're lucky.

In fact you've got your hands tied behind your back when somebody chooses to take a low road in to you, there is nothing you can do about it, and so you just live with it and move on.

I have a very low regard for cynics. I think it's the beginning of dying.

The art of making a film and its content are far more interesting to me than the result or impact.

I don't remember spending any time with anybody on set. I don't spend a lot of time with people.

Part of me is drawn to the nature of sadness because I think life is sad, and sadness is not something that should be avoided or denied. It's a fact of life, like contradictions are.

I was raised in California during the Second World War and into the '50s and everything was fine, everything was great. The sun always shone, everybody looked healthy and wore ties and smoked in restaurants, and there were cars for everybody - except us, because I came from a lower class neighbourhood. But [in France] I realised there was a different point of view, so when I came back to America a year and a half later I was much more focused on my own country culturally and politically.