Vic Armstrong Is, Of Course, A Legend

I Certainly Wasn't Able To Get It When I Was A Kid Growing Up On The Lower East Side; It Was Very Hard At That Time For Me To Balance What I Really Believed Was The Right Way To Live With The Violence I Saw All Around Me - I Saw Too Much Of It Among The People I Knew.

I Think When You're Young And Have That First Burst Of Energy And Make Five Or Six Pictures In A Row That Tell The Stories Of All The Things In Life You Want To Say... Well, Maybe Those Are The Films That Should Have Won Me The Oscar.

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.

I Would Ask: Given The Nature Of Free-market Capitalism - Where The Rule Is To Rise To The Top At All Costs - Is It Possible To Have A Financial Industry Hero? And By The Way, This Is Not A Pop-culture Trend We're Talking About. There Aren't Many Financial Heroes In Literature, Theater Or Cinema.

There Must Be People Who Remember World War Ii And The Holocaust Who Can Help Us Get Out Of This Rut.