The challenge, really, on any new film is to try to avoid that and achieve a few moments that aren’t cliche.

I don’t know really. I’ve always been interested in the small picture instead of the big one, and I’ve always been interested in relationship pictures.

The danger is that if you have a bunch of ideas that you forget to use.

I feel a little schizophrenic because my life is so totally different from here, obviously. And the French values are so different from American values.

Their every instinct – and I have to say this is without exception – is to iron out the bumps, and It’s always the bumps that are the most interesting stuff.

I think you get better at staring into space. Especially living in the South of France.

Well, I think just the fact that you are making your first film is a huge step.

I was speaking to Ridley Scott the other day and he makes a film every 18 months. He’s amazing really.

What I think is interesting is that the more you do, you have to invent a book of rules of what you can do and what you can’t do. And the very real danger is...

I was watching Monster’s Ball, which is a fabulous movie. It’s just a little gem: beautifully shot, and shot in a way I never would have done. It made me feel very old, really, because...

But he tempts Providence who suffers that spirit of anarchy to grow and gather strength before striking a blow for its destruction.

Well, Brief Encounter is certainly one of my top five favorites of all time. I looked at Brief Encounter very closely, to be honest.

I’ve always been interested in films where you can identify with the actors. Where you can be in their shoes and therefore be more involved if they’re people that you recognize.

I do not mean that you could continue to do this with propriety or even with safety; I merely assert that the power is, in point of fact, in your hands. And for such a...

Always, with any movie that I do, I have a book of ideas that I’ve heard, or seen, or whatever, and I always try to incorporate it in the film.

If you are prepared to make a fool of yourself for them then you usually get that back. I think that there are points where you become so close to an actor, you know them...

It has always been a great wrong that these men and their families should be held in bondage. We of the North have hitherto acquiesced in it, lest, in the endeavor to redress it in...

And I think you understand a little bit more why she falls for him. In a way, watching the French do anything is a little more fun because their gestures are different. And in that...

It’s the sort of subject that always interests me: jealousy and the language of suspicion and guilt. I think it interests people.

Our enemies, like the Grecian hero, have one vulnerable point. You have not touched it yet. What should have been their element of weakness has been suffered to remain an element of strength.

Diane Lane’s face mirrored every conflicting emotion about how she felt about what she’d done. It had radiance, it had guilt, it had sadness.

Obviously, in dealing with a relationship, sexuality has to be involved, and jealousy and emotions like that. And I don’t know, I’ve always been intrigued by those emotions.

You are the first President to whom the opportunity was ever offered constitutionally to inaugurate such a day. If you fail us now, you may be the last.

Every time I do one I feel like I’ve never really quite learned anything. I always find that when I’m making a film, I find it a little bit like I’m doing it for the...

So on my screenplay, on the left-hand side of the page, I will put all the ideas that refer to the scene next to it so I have some sort of pictorial reference.

You would violate usage only if you should act without the advice, or even contrary to the opinions, of your constitutional advisers.

Foxes was a movie that didn’t do a lot of business but it didn’t do too badly critically and eventually they offered me other things. The interesting thing was that next I tried a film...