Some movies are what I would call murky. Just because it's murky doesn't make it artistic. It makes it hard to see.

Mexican cinematographers Gabriel Figueroa and Emilio Fernandez were students of both Sergei Eisenstein and Toland. Their exteriors and lighting were gorgeous. And the films Ingmar Bergman did with Sven Nykvist were exceptional.

I love Woody Allen. He's very clever, always thinking, and he's great with actors. He lets actors do what they want to do and occasionally he'll give them a specific kind of direction.

I love to make movies about young people - young scientists that are inventing things and all the writing they did was very funny and very true.

If you use hand-held techniques just to make the film stylish I think it's wrong.

Sometimes the shots serve as homages to other movies and other directors, like Hitchcock.

When I was in Hungary in December I was looking at student films and I could not tell which ones were shot on film and which ones were shot digitally. I think that is because the filmmakers in Europe go to four years of film school and learn the techniques.