It isn’t a desperate situation like A Child Is Waiting. These people aren’t trapped, they are always conscious of having a choice. My films strip characters of some of their illusions. Bring them to a little bit of understanding. The people come to some small awareness.

The main problem is finding an area where conflict is real and tangible. Contemporary filmmakers must find new areas of conflict, new kinds of problems. The traditional conflicts of poverty versus riches, of good versus evil, no longer reflect our situation. We’ve reached a state in which we have what we want: enough to eat, a wife, a roof over our heads and acceptance in society. The problem has become, ‘What’s the problem?’ In this country, people die at twenty-one. They die emotionally at twenty-one. Maybe even younger, now. For those of us who are lucky not to die at twenty, we keep on going, and my responsibility as an artist is to help people get over twenty-one. The films are expressive of a culture that has had the possibility of attaining material fulfillment while at the same time finding itself unable to accomplish the simple business of conducting human lives. We have been sold a bill of goods as a substitute for life. What is needed is a reassurance in human emotions; a reevaluation of our emotional capacities.