I Have A Desire To Tell Stories.

Always Get To The Set Or The Location Early, So That You Can Be All Alone And Draw Your Inspiration For The Blocking And The Setups In Private And Quiet. In One Sense, It's About Protecting Yourself; In Another Sense, It's About Always Being Open To Surprise, Even From The Set, Because There May Be Some Detail That You Hadn't Noticed. I Think This Is Crucial. There Are Many Pictures That Seem Good In So Many Ways Except One: They Lack A Sense Of Surprise, They've Never Left The Page.

The Bottom Line Is, I Tend To Be Going Back To Older And Older Music.

Working With Hbo Was An Opportunity To Experience Creative Freedom And 'long-form Development' That Filmmakers Didn't Have A Chance To Do Before The Emergence Of Shows Like 'the Sopranos.'

A Lot Of What I'm Obsessed With Is The Relationship And The Dynamics Between People And The Family, Particularly Brothers And Their Father.

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.