I Loved The Idea Of Seeing The

The Most Important Thing Is, How Can I Move Forward Towards Something That I Can't Articulate, That Is New In Storytelling With Moving Images And Sound?

I'm Often Asked By Younger Filmmakers, 'why Do I Need To Look At Old Movies?' I've Made A Number Of Pictures In The Last 20 Years And The Response I Have To Give Them Is That I Still Consider Myself A Student. The More Pictures I've Made In 20 Years, The More I Realize I Really Don't Know. And I'm Always Looking For Something Or Someone That I Could Learn From. I Tell The Younger Filmmakers, And The Young Students, That Do It Like Painters Used To Do—that Painters Do—study The Old Masters, Enrich Your Palette, Expand The Canvas. There's Always So Much More To Learn.

[action's] A Western Thing. We Think Of The Hero Going Into Battle, Rebelling Against A Government Or An Oppressor, But [in Kundun] Action Is Nonaction Or What Appears To Be Nonaction. That's A Hard Concept For Western Audiences. . . . We Wanted To Show A Kind Of Moral Action, A Spiritual Action, An Emotional Action. Some People Will Pick Up On It; Some Won't.

I Don't Like Being In Houses Alone.

It’s Also True That I Might Have Never Made Taxi Driver [1976] Were It Not For The Success Of Alice [doesn’t Live Here Anymore, 1974]. The Question Of Commercialism Is A Source Of Worry. Must One Make A Choice, Must It Be A Matter Of Either Setting Your Sights On Winning An Academy Award And Becoming A Millionaire, Or Making Only The Movies You Want To Make And Starving To Death?