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Hollywood and film portray who we are as a people and what we value as a culture.

We live in a youth-obsessed, aesthetically obsessed culture. That is no more evident than in the film industry.

I guess, deep down, there's a dark side to us. I guess that's why movie fans really love the revenge drama. We like to go into dark movie theaters and fantasize.

An often-repeated assertion in the body of film criticism I have written is the assertion that movies do not just mirror the culture of any given time; they also create it.

Cinema explains American society. It's like a Western, with good guys and bad guys, where the weak don't have a place.

The 'low' quality of many American films, and of much American popular culture, induces many art lovers to support cultural protectionism. Few people wish to see the cultural diversity of the world disappear under a wave of American market dominance.

The trick of making movies in this culture is how to not give up everything that makes them worthwhile in order to get them made - and that's a tricky balance.

I understand why creative people like dark, but American audiences don't like dark. They like story. They do not respond to nervous breakdowns and unhappy episodes that lead nowhere. They like their characters to be a part of the action. They like strength, not weakness, a chance to work out any dilemma.

I'm a big fan of British cinema; I think we make some unbelievably brilliant films, but they can quite often have a dark feel.

There's an abundance of exposure when you start working in American films. Inevitably you become a brand and that has to be controlled.