I see people like Bob Altman, Elaine May, Elia Kazan – great directors. These people shouldn’t be left alone. Somewhere along the line there has to be somebody who makes things easier. Not someone who says like most distributors, ‘Can you do it? Can you be a killer? Can you pretend that everything is right?’ The one difference between the film industry now and the old days is that back then nobody had a responsibility to make a great film. They had a responsibility to sucker in the big guys, band together and have fun on their own small level. Through that, the accidents of great films occurred because the love was always there. All those guys had pride in making a good film, if only to be able to say, ‘Well, our picture was good at least.’ No one thought in terms of millions of dollars. Now the big question is, ‘Can a picture make a hundred million?’ Who the hell cares? If you’re thinking that way, you’re not making films, you’re making money. If that’s what it’s come to, let the audience look at pictures of money, put money on the screen, and then rape it, shoot it, defecate on it – because that’s basically what everyone is doing. I’m not really an angry person, but I get angry when I see people of extraordinary talent and ability abused so terribly by the majors who defile anything.

There are blockbusting pictures that have been heavily promoted. The audience looks for deeper meaning because these films are sociologically acceptable. The better movies do not give you acceptable meanings. I think that consequently the audience has lost its taste. There’s too much emphasis on how successful each and every picture should be. You’re really doing an experiment and no matter how hard I work or you work on something, it’s just one thing out of billions and trillions of things. It shouldn’t have that much importance placed on it. To be forced to have that much importance forces films out of a productive area for both the people that make them and the people that view them.