The thing I was up against in documentary films - was trying to get non-actors to convincingly play themselves in a way I'd come to know before the camera started rolling. And many non-actors can't do that convincingly, even if they just have to play themselves - they can't be naturalistic. And I would always want to recreate something I'd witnessed them do or say, and it just would be incredibly difficult because of the fact they weren't actors.

I hope they get something of interest out of it, but I'd rather they all hate it and I like it, instead of vice versa... I make films to please myself first, and if the audience likes them, all the better.

Dialogue that's distinctive, funny, peculiar, and specific is the main thing that makes me want to get involved with a film to begin with.

It makes it difficult to decide which to go see, since no film about say, some tragic genocide in Africa is going to get a bad review even if it's poorly made.

Luckily, he was in the process of moving to France at the time, anyway. But if he had stayed in the States, I don't know how he would have handled that, because it was getting pretty crazy. I mean, a celebrity which he really did not welcome. And I can't blame him.

Because I found myself telling the story of his family to people without the visual aids that I was able to employ by filming them eventually. But I very much knew exactly what I was going to do.

Saying that all documentaries are the same is like saying all foreign films are the same.