The past assumes the nature of the present..

I believe in intermissions. I lived through this experience with JFK and Nixon. JFK should have had an intermission. It should have come right after ….

You look at the Russian side: They're defending their territory from the beginning. They move west to destroy the Nazis. And they take out the guts o….

Forget the grand plan. Forget the master scheme. Forget control. That is the bleak but true basis of independent cinema. Inch by motherfuking inch we….

Nixon identified himself as a crisis-laden man. He'd reach levels of victory and then he'd plunge into defeat. He was vice president, then he lost to….

I think our life is a series of adventures..

You always try to find the right style for the movie. That's the key..

One of my fantasies in my life has been that I was granted access with a camera to go back in time, and to film the actual campaign of Alexander cros….

When I go to the movies, and I have to sit through ten previews of films that look [alike] and tell the whole story, you know that we've reached an a….

What Chavez has done [in Venezuela] is that he has brought extreme poverty to an end..

You do the best job you can. You take it step by step. It's hard enough to make a movie. If it works, that's great. If it means something beyond the ….

Obama is now fighting for his life. He's fighting for a federal government. I believe in a federal government. I hope it sticks around. We had the Am….

Everyone in the world is impacted by the United States' Big Brother attitude toward the world. We need countries to say no to the United States. The ….

[Nixon] reduced the meaning of his life to nothing but power. In the film, we gave this sad figure consciousness of what he was. We weren't right to ….

Well, George W.Bush wanted to privatize Social Security. It's an ideological thing..

The worst nightmare I ever had about Vietnam was that I had to go back. I woke up in a sweat, in total terror..

Many films are forgotten and deserve to be, but others glom onto the DNA and they keep a share of the collective consciousness. It's a profound que….

You get much more heat when you do something current..

I want my children to have access to something that looks beyond what I call the tyranny of now. You read the paper, everyone talks about that thing ….

Conspiracy nut, leftist, madman. These are terms of dismissal so you don't have to listen to the argument. It would be healthier and more fun to hear….

You can never judge how the film will be taken; you can only make your best effort, and put out what you feel. How it's read, you never can tell. Or ….