Michael's Powell art director was a painter and they had a wonderful friendship and artistic understanding. Michael himself, in the way he designed his own house, it was always with bright colours. Very un-English!

I'd trained to be a diplomat but the state department said I was too liberal. I saw an ad in the New York Times ... a hack Californian editor came to New York to butcher some films and he needed an assistant. For some reason I read it that day and it changed my life. I went to work for him and he was horrible, butchering these masterpieces by Antonioni, Visconti, but I learned enough to know what he was doing wrong.

I read the script just once, and then forget it.I just deal with what I see every day on the screen and whetherI believe it and understand it.

Michael Powell always used to say 'I'm a typical Englishman'. He was and he wasn't. He was very cosmopolitan and spent a lot of time in Europe.

You have to keep banging away at something until you get it to work. I think women are maybe better at that.

[Martin] Scorsese says one of the great things he loves about it is how Mark can't get the right shot and he's killing people because he can't get the right shot. It's an example of what film-makers are like.

Michael's Powell art director was a painter and they had a wonderful friendship and artistic understanding. Michael himself, in the way he designed his own house, it was always with bright colours. Very un-English!