Quotes

[about White of the Eye (1987)] I painted it as best I can, and if art is to be involved at all, you hope that some kind of energy or sincerity will result in some kind of revelation.

I am a painter who happens to make films.

One of the reasons I think Warners hated the film [Performance (1970)] so much is because it forces an audience to consider the construction of their own fragmented selves, the various aspects of sexuality, which is something people never question.

Performance (1970) is a landmark and a swan song for the era of swinging London.

[about his unrealized project "Jericho", which was set to star Marlon Brando] The overall image of the film is a man living with his own guilt over all the horror he's perpetrated . . . I felt I knew [Brando] as a performer and I could help orchestrate that performance, to see him bare his soul for once.

[1995 interview] You look to people who have been called artists constantly probing that area, honestly saying: "Look at this! This is real. This is real. This is my version, anyway, of what is real, as real as I can show it in my terms of reality" and that is traditionally art. So, maybe, traditionally art is amoral. There's a large segment of the art philosophy, fake or not, that presumes to say that art has to be amoral and has to be, maybe, intrinsically evil, you know.

[1988 interview] I have a very healthy disrespect for Hollywood altogether!