Quotes

We, as filmmakers, are privileged. We can make people cry or laugh. We can make think and feel. It is a great privilege and a great responsibility.

Movies are a voyeuristic experience. You have to make the audience feel like they are peeking through a keyhole. I think of myself as the audience. Then I use light, framing and motion to create a focal point.

On initially not being pleased at being given a simple "additional photography" credit on Days of Heaven (1978) "I had a pretty strong ego trip there for a couple of weeks actually, wanting to get co-credit with Néstor," but Wexler later admitted that: "My job was to see Néstor's footage, try to maintain what he's done and to do it to the best of my ability, and I was in awe of what I saw in the editing room, but I was also honored that they wanted me to go up there and [finish] it."

[asked in 1969 as to why he decided to frame his film "Medium Cool" (1969) around the events at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago] I feel that a political convention is an old-fashioned charade that's acted out every four years to divide the spoils. It has no connection with the way our country is run or the process of democracy. I suspected with today's political climate, there'd be violence in Chicago. Unfortunately, I was right.

[asked in 1969 if he could see himself making a film in exile because of his social and political views] I'm proud to say I get regular visits from the FBI, but I'll never become an exile. I think this is a great country. That's precisely why I feel I have an obligation to keep examining the freedoms that are rightfully ours. We all have that obligation--to see that they don't get away from us.