The perceived wisdom is that people do not go in large numbers to black-and-white movies anymore - which is a great shame, but I'd love to make a black-and-white movie one day. |
There is an immense, childlike enthusiasm about the man. It's inspiring when you work with a 77-year-old man who has that kind of love and excitement still in him about what he does. And like Paul Newman, each day is like the first day of his career. |
There'll always be a section of a war movie that gets people pumped up in the same way there will always be men who will want to go to war, ... There is something that entices them there, that can be found in no other walk of life. |
There's good and bad in everybody. I wasn't looking for the good, or looking for the bad. This is a man who signed his pact with the devil 20 years ago, and he's learned to live with it. He's tried to protect his family from it. |
There's no such thing as speech that is free. |
There's one thing better than having a great actor, and that's having a great actor who's never done this kind of role before and is hungry to do it. They're testing themselves every day. They want to get out of their trailer and get to work. |
There's one two-minute scene that I took out because I felt in the end Capone was a more sinister and frightening presence in the film if he never appeared. |
They thought the book was evil and a bad advertisement for the US Marine Corps. |
This is the first time in 10 years I don't know what I'm doing next, and I'm rather enjoying it. Soon I'll be climbing the walls no doubt, but right now, it's not clear, I'm just enjoying the freedom. |
To me, that makes it more psychological, |
Tony's book confronts head-on the idea that the reason [the men] joined up is because of these movies, ... It gave me the opportunity to shoot this moment where you're shooting a bunch of guys about to go to war who are watching a movie about a bunch of guys at war, knowing that our film will be seen by a bunch of guys who are possibly going to go to war. It's all a weird discussion of how movies affect us. |
Tony's book confronts head-on the idea that the reason [the men] joined up is because of these movies. It gave me the opportunity to shoot this moment where you're shooting a bunch of guys about to go to war who are watching a movie about a bunch of guys at war, knowing that our film will be seen by a bunch of guys who are possibly going to go to war. It's all a weird discussion of how movies affect us. |
Truly great actors carry their characters in silence with them. They communicate without words the relationships that predate the movie. |
Violence is something that's very deliberately chosen - who sees it, the effect it has on the person watching, and the person performing the act of violence is more important than the violence itself. It's not about a gore-fest or how much blood you can show. |
We did ask, ... And luckily, instead of saying, 'Well, maybe, if you make a few adjustments,' there was some intelligent person at the Pentagon who flat-out said, 'No way.' Which is what you want, because there are lots of stories about them saying yes, then at the last minute wanting changes and, before you know it, everything's compromised. |