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A movie can and should have some real dissonance throughout - rage, heartache, tears, conflict, catharsis and all the other elements Aristotle demanded of a good story - but the chord has to be resolved.

It's one of the things that movies do offer you, despite all of their hardships - they offer you moments of transcendence.

Movies have an enormous power to open the mind and the heart and everything.

On a transcendental level, a film is not going to be better or worse because there's a prize behind it. The work will be what it is, with or without a prize.

I'd much rather be in a movie that people have really strong feelings about than one that makes a hundred million dollars but you can't remember because it's just like all the others.

Maybe It's not the biggest blockbuster film, but there will be some people that will see it, that will be debating it, that will be questioning their own sense of spirituality. If the film resonates, then I have succeeded in what I set out to do.

A good movie makes the audience feel like they've journeyed with the characters.

I prefer to make a film that people have a really intense reaction to than have a film that people feel ambivalent about.

Movies can be instruments of enlightenment.

If I were given a choice between two films and one was dark and explored depraved, troubled or sick aspects of our culture, I would always opt for that over the next romantic comedy.