There's my pessimism. Because I didn't know yet that type of film is always going to become more extinct, that there won't be anymore. Because there will always be more films that win five Oscars like Terms of Endearment.

I've tried to consider stories that I have read, making them into films, but they would turn out unnatural. If a producer wants that, he should call other people. Not me.

There are directors, and there are authors. I think I am more of an author than a director.

As far as commercials were concerned, I did very few, and I did them only when they gave me carte blanche to them the way that I wanted to. And I did them as an exercise, because I, who do very long films, never thought I would be able to tell a story in 30 or 40 seconds - you come across a whole new system and manner of approaching a subject.

America is so varied and exciting that after six months, you go back and find it completely changed.

I realized than an author cannot also be a producer.

There was also the myth of the western films. But my films are borrowed not from the story of the West in America but from the story of cinema.