The Kindest Thing A Director Can Do

Whenever I'm Asked About Independent Cinema, I Think Of What Fidel Castro Said During The Cold War About The League Of Non-aligned Nations. He Said That Really, There Were Only Two Non-aligned Nations: The U.s. And The Ussr. The Rest Of Us Have To Be Aligned Somewhere. I Say Similarly, In A Way, Paramount, Sony, And Warner Bros. Are The Only True Independents, Because They're The Only Ones Who Can Do Whatever They Want And Have Distribution For Their Films Built In.

I Like Action Films, Not Exclusively, But I Like Samurai Films. I Like Westerns. Not So Much War Pictures, But A Few. I Like Kinetic Cinema.

My Editor And I Remain Very Disciplined. It's Just Sometimes When You're Making A Film, You Get Into The Cutting Room And You See A Scene That's Slowing You Down In A Certain Section, But If You Remove That Scene Then, Emotionally Or Story-wise, Another Scene A Half-hour Later Won't Have The Same Impact. You Just Get Stuck With It.

I Think If You Watch Most Of My Films With The Sound Off, You Could Still Tell What's Going On.

Independent Means One Thing To Me: It Means That Regardless Of The Source Of Financing, The Director's Voice Is Extremely Present. It's Such A Pretentious Term, But It's Auteurist Cinema. Director-driven, Personal, Auteurist... Whatever Word You Want. It's Where You Feel The Director, Not A Machine, At Work. It Doesn't Matter Where The Money Comes From. It Matters How Much Freedom The Director Has To Work With His Or Her Team. That's How I Personally Define Independent Movies.