I felt no obligation to bow to any 21st Century political correctness. What I did feel an obligation to do was to take the 21stCentury viewers and physically transport them back to the ante bellum South in 1858, in Mississippi, and have them look at America for what it was back then. And I wanted it to be shocking.
I always wanted to do a movie that deals with America's horrific past with slavery, but the way I wanted to deal with it is - as opposed to doing it as a huge historical movie with a capital H - I thought it could be better if it was wrapped up in genre.
There is no other genre that deals with America better, in a subtextual way, than the Westerns being made in the different decades. The '50s Westerns very much put forth an Eisenhower idea of America, whereas the Westerns of the '70s were very cynical about America.
[My muse] feels nostalgic for Japan, and, perhaps strangely, for the pioneer days of America.
The cultural products of America from this period [ fifties and sixties] are like a vision of paradise or something. I find it utterly intoxicating.
It is true that in America I've become a national hero, but really I was a hopeless case, that was all.
If you live in America, you don't have to work. You can just drift along in the smiling and nodding racket.
I have to work in England, but here in America you don't have to work. You can sort of enter the profession of being.
I came first to America in 1977 at the invitation of a man who wanted to make my life story into a musical. But my agent said it was not to be and it was never done. So I went back, but I'd seen New York, and I wanted to live there. Because everybody talks to you in the street. See, nobody talks to you in England.
You don't have to deal with anyone in America. They accept you the way you are.
I'm not American, but I do have an opinion, and I think that right now, it is what it is, and I think the country needs to come together to say: What is the America we want to create right now? The same thing will happen on television now going forward if we do have a female president. It will be something that will be discussed.
It [9/11 tragedy] has affected us on so many levels: economically, morally, spiritually, ethically. It's been all over the place. A new American identity emerged - we now live in a very different America. This is the power of the definitive event.
It is important for America that the moral truths which make freedom possible should be passed on to each new generation. Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought. ... Christ asks us to guard the truth because, as he promised us: "You will know the truth and the truth will make you free." Depositum custodi! We must guard the truth that is the condition of authentic freedom, the truth that allows freedoms to be fulfilled in goodness. We must guard the deposit of divine truth handed down to us.
The people of America, are not fearful of foreigners, because most of us were once foreigners.
Preparation for marriage is very important. It's very, very important because I believe it is something that in the Church, in common pastoral ministry, at least in my country, in South America, the Church it has not valued much.
In Latin America in general, it's very important that Christianity not be simply a thing of reason, but also of the heart.
This is going to sound crazy, especially in America where there is a total inflation of the word "love," but in a sense you have to love the people in front of the camera. There has to be trust between the one who is behind the camera and the people on the other side, so that they can relax. They have to feel they are safe, and that way they don't have to pretend just because they are scared.
Loads of my friends are lesbians, and it really annoys me that gay people aren't allowed to get married in most parts of America. I'd go on a march for gay rights any time.
The death of JFK to the resignation of Richard Nixon marked a great turning point in American life.
America Held Hostage won 24 Emmys for ABC News, but someone forgot to include my name on the list of people responsible for the show.
Sugar is more present in America or England than it is in France. I think there is an addiction to sweetness.
American dreams are strongest in the hearts of those who have seen America only in their dreams.
America has a hold on imaginations that no other country does. I think that is partly because it is an immigrant country and there is still a kind of innocence in America that translates very well everywhere in the world.
We don't have a refugee crisis in America; we have a racism crisis here.
When you start to look at Native American history, you realize that, very far from being a peaceful, morally superior people, Native Americans were not that different from Europeans.
