Your camera is the best critic there is. Critics never see as much as the camera does. It is more perceptive than the human eye.

But I always wanted my characters to be more than cyphers for the failings of their world. And I never had to look too hard to find a part of myself in them.

I never regarded my pictures as very much to be proud of, except in this, the craft, the style.

Your characters have to remain innocent of what your picture is after.

Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?

I was making films about American society, and it is true that I never felt at home there, except perhaps when my wife and I lived on a farm in the San Fernando Valley.