There Is An Audience Out There For

I Don't Think So Much About Verbal Comedy. I Always Think About Visual Comedy. I Was Raised Watching Silents, And I'm Always Thinking About How To Make Cinema, Not Good Talking - Although I Want Good Talking. I'm Much More Interested In Framing, Composition, And Orchestration Of Bodies In Space, And So Forth. My Goal Is Always What Chuck Jones Wanted His Warner Brothers Cartoons To Be, Which Was If You Turn Down The Sound, You Could Still Tell What's Going On. I Think If You Watch Most Of My Films With The Sound Off, You Could Still Tell What's Going On.

Each One Of My Movies Becomes Easier To Get Off The Ground.

Comedy Is A Wonderful Device For Distance That Allows Us To Look At What We're Talking About With Some Degree Of Distance And Hopefully With A Bit More Perspective And Honesty. With Many Exceptions, A Movie With No Jokes Is Far Less Appealing To Me.

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 To Think Of Film-making Not Just As An Act Of Personal Self-aggrandisement But Rather As An Act Of Public Service.