I'm trying to suggest a kind of Middle Earth, in Tolkien terms. It's a contiguous world; it's like ours but different.

I only storyboard scenes that require special effects, where it is necessary to communicate through pictures.

You can't get an actor to do something that is beyond his range, so you have to be aware of the range of the actor and, if necessary, alter the part to suit the actor.

All the great legends are Templates for human behavior. I would define a myth as a story that has survived.

The more extreme and the more expressed that passion is, the more unbearable does life seem without it. It reminds us that if passion dies or is denied, we are partly dead.

Black and white is much closer to the condition of dreaming. It links you to the subconscious and I think that was part of the great appeal of movies originally.. this strange otherness.

I was in Japan, and my assistant director had worked with Kurosawa. I used quite of number of Kurosawa's crew.

Movie-making is the process of turning money into light. All they have at the end of the day is images flickering on a wall.

It's so easy to manipulate an audience, but it's nearly always clear that you are being manipulated. I think even people that are not critically attuned are aware of cynical manipulation in film.

What is passion? Passion is surely the becoming of a person.

Black-and-white gives you that sort of parallel world. Also, it's very close to the condition of dreaming, to the unconscious.

I define nothing. Not beauty, not patriotism. I take each thing as it is, without prior rules about what it should be.

Rejected by man, yet accepted by the Maker.

The similarities among different kinds of audiences far outweigh the differences.

I love the NBA playoffs. It's just a great mental test for each team. When it's really close, usually one team pulls together, and the other team comes apart.

Perfume: any smell that is used to drown a worse one.

Societies on this planet are based upon fear, not upon love. The strong dominate the weak.

Discipline is not only very important, it's crucial.

Against my protests a mausoleum was built on the Red Square, a monument unbecoming and offensive to the revolutionary consciousness.

I am always writing no matter what I am doing and no matter what it is for.

Short-cuts lead to long delays.