Movies aren't "slow burn," and aren't serious, aren't interesting, because everything from the movie to the promotional materials is telling you that you have to see it between Friday and Sunday, and then you can forget about it. It's not an important movie, it's just a lowest-common-denominator thrill-ride for three days when you've got nothing to do. That does a major disservice to the quality of the films

With my horror movies or with this movie [Valley of Violence], same thing. The subtext of this movie is what to take away from it. Plot is never something that's been my driving force as a filmmaker.

It's not the plot [of Valley of Violence] - the plot is the reason to get all these things to happen, all these character moments to happen. It was always meant to have these two perspectives.

I'm not sure I understand the compulsion to label things.

One of my favorite scenes of the movie [Valley of Violence] is when Ethan Hawke is sitting at the campfire with the dog.

Humor is more so. For this, there's definitely moments that I think, "I know this part is really funny and I want to see people laugh." And they do and you go, "Yesss." That's really satisfying, because I'm so proud of the performances in the movie and everybody worked so hard.

I don't go to see movies to see plots. I'm not interested in puzzles like an Agatha Christie story.