The Better A Novel Is, In Literary

Independent Means One Thing To Me: It Means That Regardless Of The Source Of Financing, The Director's Voice Is Extremely Present. It's Such A Pretentious Term, But It's Auteurist Cinema. Director-driven, Personal, Auteurist... Whatever Word You Want. It's Where You Feel The Director, Not A Machine, At Work. It Doesn't Matter Where The Money Comes From. It Matters How Much Freedom The Director Has To Work With His Or Her Team. That's How I Personally Define Independent Movies.

I'd Love To Be A Director-for-hire And Get A Nice Paycheck And Captain One Of Those Big Ships, But I Think Studios Mistakenly Think I Want To Write What I Direct - Which I Don't. I Write Out Of Desperation, Because I Never Get A Script I Like, Other Than "nebraska." It's A Matter Of: What's The Screenplay? Is It Intelligent? Is It Human? I Don't Care What Genre, What Scale. I'm Here For The Movies.

I Think If You Watch Most Of My Films With The Sound Off, You Could Still Tell What's Going On.

I Always Think About Visual Comedy. I Was Raised Watching Silents, And I'm Always Thinking About How To Make Cinema, Not Good Talking - Although I Want Good Talking. I'm Much More Interested In Framing, Composition, And Orchestration Of Bodies In Space, And So Forth. My Goal Is Always What Chuck Jones Wanted His Warner Brothers Cartoons To Be, Which Was If You Turn Down The Sound, You Could Still Tell What's Going On.

Comedy Is A Wonderful Device For Distance That Allows Us To Look At What We're Talking About With Some Degree Of Distance And Hopefully With A Bit More Perspective And Honesty. With Many Exceptions, A Movie With No Jokes Is Far Less Appealing To Me.