There are two kinds of power you have to fight. The first is the money, and that's just our system. The other is the people close around you, knowing when to accept their criticism, knowing when to say no.

Young film makers should learn how to deal with the money and learn how to deal with the power structure. Because it is like a battle.

The cinema began with a passionate, physical relationship between celluloid and the artists and craftsmen and technicians who handled it, manipulated it, and came to know it the way a lover comes to know every inch of the body of the beloved. No matter where the cinema goes, we cannot afford to lose sight of its beginnings.

A lot of what I'm obsessed with is the relationship and the dynamics between people and the family, particularly brothers and their father.

Eradicating a religion of kindness is, I think, a terrible thing for the Chinese to attempt.

My whole life has been movies and religion. That's it. Nothing else.

Death comes in a flash, and that's the truth of it, the person's gone in less than 24 frames of film.

There must be people who remember World War II and the Holocaust who can help us get out of this rut.