One wants to be able to experience being other people, remaking a reality, remaking a life, remaking a certain world.

I don't consider myself a teacher of moral and political positions. I don't want to be that. I can't help but have a point of view when I make a film, but my first job is to entertain you.

I'm not going to be an interpreter at the U.N. I'm not going to live in Africa on a farm or whatever, but I am going to see the world through those eyes when I make those films.

You know, essentially when you do a play you're reinterpreting a work of art that already exists. That's not what happens with a movie.

Editing feels almost like sculpting or a form of continuing the writing process.

I've produced my own films for twenty years now - it means I have to talk to less people.

For example, a man who might not have enormous charisma, who could be president 40 years ago, and who was a deserving president, I don't know that George Washington would be a president today, I don't know that Abe Lincoln would, I don't know that Roosevelt would.