Talent is less important in filmmaking than patience.

Hyperbole is something Id better avoid.

I was born in 1940 in Minnesota and grew up in the country... dirt roads, swamps, lakes, woods.

There was a perverse side of me, with things like Van Helsing coming out. I didn't want to go down that route.

The forces that run the world always try to keep things under control. The population might be having a wonderful time, buying iPods and going to nice restaurants, but I still feel they're all kind of under control.

The success of the Hollywood marketing machine is to limit what we see. Not just to limit what we can see, but also to limit our expectations - to limit what we want to see.

What I want to do is make films that astonish people, that astound people, and I hope you want to do that too. It's easy to make money. It's easy to make films like everybody else. But to make films that explode like grenades in people's heads and leave shrapnel for the rest of their lives is a very important thing. That's what the great filmmakers did for me. I've got images from Fellini, from Bergman, from Kurowsawa, from Bunuel, all stuck in my brain.