Family politics are worse than world politics. That's all I can say. You don't get to choose your family; you get to choose your friends. Your family is imposed upon you.
There's nothing good that comes out of war. It's simply hell on earth, and people survive, and people don't.
I have a very simple definition of a good movie: a good movie makes you forget you're watching a movie.
I don't believe in defeat.
Even the details of a rifle, which are nothing but mechanical, if they are made carefully, with attention, become beautiful, satisfying.
A film maker's energy and creativity don't have to end when he turns over his film.
They've said everything about me that they could: racist, Marxist, rightist, homophobic, sex change - I don't know what else they could come up with.
Most people I knew had been crippled by their educations. Some were even dying spiritually.
It's one of the wonderful things that the Academy does - a talented person comes along like Mira Sorvino, and it elevates them up to stardom.
War is war. Vietnam is no different from the Crusades.
Does anyone remember who shot Kubrick's movies? Do you remember who shot David Lean's movies? No one remembers who shot 'Dr. Strangelove' or 'Barry Lyndon.'
When I was fifteen, I spent three weeks driving all over Brooklyn with a guy who was following his girlfriend.
A film reflects who you are as a building reflects the soul of its architect. I think what you feel and what you think and what you are is what the film is. It's not for me to talk about.
On a movie, you often work fourteen-, sixteen-hour days, six days a week, for six months. It is so easy to let up because of fatigue.
It's one of the things that movies do offer you, despite all of their hardships - they offer you moments of transcendence.
You couldn't make 'Heaven's Gate' today. Even were you to quadruple the resources to make the movie, you couldn't make it because the people don't exist.
We all want to experience that in our lives - a moment when we're two feet off the ground - and making movies gives you that opportunity. It comes and it goes so fast that it's unreal, but it does happen.
I cut 'Deer Hunter' myself.
I would never suggest that the geography or visual environment of the film is more important than what's going on with the people, but it's a major factor in getting the right tone. Certainly, it influences the actors tremendously.
I don't dispute the accounts of My Lai 4, but I think that anyone who is a student of the war, or anyone who was there, would agree that anything you could imagine happening probably happened.
