Star Wars, the original movie, was all the various old genre of pictures: the swashbucklers, the war movies, all those things were put n there in a different look.
I love that sort of 1930s and 1940s; I love that period - the thought of it. And I like war movies and all that kind of stuff as well.
Given the knee-jerk patriotism of recent war movies, it's discouraging to see 'Windtalkers' evade pertinent facts that could have recast the doubled-edged issues of racism and loyalty and made them relevant to contemporary times.
I've played heavies for years and years and years. I was bald. I came to Hollywood. I did a play about junk. I was a pusher, so I played pushers for years and years and years. I did war movies and things like that.
The classic war movies of the post-Vietnam era have generally taken on grand, philosophical themes: the meaninglessness of war, the grinding down of man by the machine - the machine being war itself, represented by someone like Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in 'Full Metal Jacket,' the sadistic marine who turns his boys into instruments of death.
We don't really see a lot of war movies about the people that are left behind, dealing with the deaths of those who serve and the sacrifices they make.
I love the Kathryn Bigelow example: she didn't just do war movies - she did them better than other directors.
There was a Russian director named Elem Klimov, who did his films during the communist days. They were constantly struggling with the authorities and to be allowed to express themselves. But he did one of the best war movies I've ever seen - it's called 'Come and See.'
I actually write film music because I'm classically trained on the piano so as well as songwriting I also write actual film music that could be used for movies like war movies and love movies.
