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The Beatles in 1963 came to America and became international celebrities, but Bobby Fischer was one of the first, as Elvis was, more in terms of the message created around him.
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It's a harder time to make original, less conventional movies. But God, we need them!
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I met a lot of women in the military with Meg Ryan, and they were remarkably impressive: Competent and strong and not versions of men, but versions of women. And they had stories to tell about how difficult it had been for them.
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We've suspended the willing suspension of disbelief. We have given up that relationship, that almost hypnotic engagement, with the characters up on the screen.
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The idea that things can be serious minded but must be somehow balkanized in the art-house ghetto is very upsetting because I think it limits not just the audience who was already going to see it, but those who might have had their tastes developed at a younger age.
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The issue of diamonds in Africa is inseparable from the issue of child soldiers.
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It's one thing to plan and imagine what you want on a film, but when you actually arrive and survey the scene, there's a moment of, 'Oh my God, what was I thinking?'
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Forgive me, but what is the purpose of drama but catharsis?
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I was trained in the repertory theater. You would do Moliere one night and Sam Shepard the next.
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I've never been one of those guys who storyboards every frame, because that would take away some of the mystery and some of the fun.
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If you don't know each other you spend time doing research together, having dinner, and talking about your lives. You try to find common ground. Once you're shooting, the pressures are so intense; you really want to have a channel of communication open to you already.
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There's only a certain number of movies I'm going to get made, and it's important to me that they each be original somehow.
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The privilege I've had over 15 movies over a very long time has been to make movies that were ambitious or grown-up, complex, that had themes in them that were sometimes political, sometimes challenging, to make these movies on a scale.
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When my own son was 12, we didn't want toy guns in the house. So he just picked up a stick and went, 'Bam! Bam! Bam!' That's the testosterone of a 12-year-old boy.
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The military has been actually remarkable at dealing with race, but gender is an issue.
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Sometimes when we weep in the movies we weep for ourselves or for a life unlived. Or we even go to the movies because we want to resist the emotion that's there in front of us. I think there is always a catharsis that I look for and that makes the movie experience worthwhile.
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One of the great tragedies is that there is so much less open land available in Japan today. Many Japanese come to New Zealand because of its beauty.
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Growing up, movies were something my family and, later, my friends and I would stay up all night talking about. The movies I remember moved me and forced you to think about things that made you know yourself better.
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People make the assumption that you're only interested in one thing based on the most recent thing you've done. But some directors can be pretty promiscuous about their tastes, and that's how I want to challenge myself.
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I think to see American troops in an American city is, you know, the sum of all of our fears.
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I'm very promiscuous in my tastes.
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I look at modern life and I see people not taking responsibility for their lives. The temptation to blame, to find external causes to one's own issues is something that is particularly modern. I know that personally I find that sense of responsibility interesting.
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The most interesting thing to me in chess are not the gambits. Or the moves. It's the mental toughness.
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Yes, illness is serious, but the indignities are also funny. And that defines my world view.