For example, a man who might not have enormous charisma, who could be president 40 years ago, and who was a deserving president, I don't know that George Washington would be a president today, I don't know that Abe Lincoln would, I don't know that Roosevelt would.
I don't have a style. I've never thought of myself as a stylist like the visual stylists I admire enormously - Adrian Lyne, Ridley Scott, Alan Parker - in which every shot has a great idea in them.
People ask me over and over how is it that I work with stars. How do you work with Barbra Streisand, with Paul Newman, with Al Pacino, with Sally Field, Jane Fonda, you work with all these people. Isn't this a problem? And it isn't a problem at all. It's terrific. It's great fun. And I don't know what the answer is.
American movies are the most popular movies everywhere, and it is true that the quality is far from uniformly terrific.
When you first start out, you want to be Fellini, or you want to be Bergman.
Good actors aren't enough. You need charisma. Can you imagine 'Casablanca' without Bogart and Bergman?
I am not a farceur. I am not Blake Edwards.
Everybody's trying to make blockbusters.
Even in 'Victor/Victoria,' there was talk about what it means to be a woman, what it means to be a man. You didn't get that in the old days, in 'Charley's Aunt' or 'Some Like It Hot.'
There's nothing wrong with crooks having lawyers. Everyone is entitled to a lawyer.
Depicting a terrorist act in a film isn't going to incite terrorism.
No, I never went to college. Always regretted it, always envied people who did.
Even with 'Three Days of the Condor,' I wanted to do a thriller. But I was still concentrating on the Faye Dunaway-Robert Redford relationship in that film.
At some point during the filmmaking process, you lose objectivity, and you need the eyes of someone who understands the process and has been in the trenches.
By that I mean, I think that it is true that politics and political heroes have to satisfy our need to be greater than mortal in some way, and that's led them into creating illusions, sound bites, focus groups that tell you what to do.
I mean, I don't know anything else that I would try to do, but it's a very frustrating thing to do, because you are trying to take what's a fantasy in your head and make it live through the minds of 200 people.
The essence to me of all good drama is argument.
What's overwhelmingly clear is 'Havana' didn't work for people, but why it didn't work I don't feel I can put my finger on in a way I can learn from.
Beginnings and endings are not interesting; audiences want the high point, which means you've got to get to it and get to it now - get the gun out fast, the clothes off quick.
I am not a cult director at all. I make Hollywood movies.
