Films like 'The Godfather,' 'The Exorcist,' 'Klute,' 'Chinatown,' 'Network,' and 'The Parallax View': They were drawn from the genre tradition, but they dressed down the stylistic telling of those traditions and genres.

Films like 'The Godfather,' 'Chinatown' and 'The Exorcist' brought a realism and currency and understatement to their genres that we wanted for 'Mildred Pierce.'

The highest-caliber dramatic work produced for TV - not just in cable but something like 'The Good Wife' at network - is consistently great.

I think camp is a really fascinating thing, and it's hard to define and hard to apply consciously. It's almost something you take from material that's already existed in the world, a reading of the world. But I think it speaks of a long tradition of gay reading of the world, before gays were allowed to be visible.

I love how 'melodrama' is a denigrated term - a lower-class citizen to other genres. And yet that's what life is, man.

The best love stories on film are rooted in the point of view of the more woundable, vulnerable party, the more amorous party.