Along with its enchanting and exquisite melodies, West Side Story has attitude and a tremendous amount of frenetic energy. It's emotional, theatrical and technical. It's everything.
The privilege I've had over 15 movies over a very long time has been to make movies that were ambitious or grown-up, complex, that had themes in them that were sometimes political, sometimes challenging, to make these movies on a scale.
I never thought I would write about the Book of Revelation. It's so dense; it's so complex and puzzling. But then I found I was thinking about a number of themes, one of which has to do with politics and religion.
There are some themes, some subjects, too large for adult fiction; they can only be dealt with adequately in a children's book.
I never thought 'The Glass Castle' would be a movie. It's just too complicated.
I do really like serio-comic movies that treat real difficulties in a real way.
Along with all else, Sandman is a comic strip for intellectuals, and I say it's about time.
While I think love is a beautiful emotion, I can't make simple love stories any more. In the time that I have, I would like to make films about things that move and bother me.
I've always said that Watership Down is not a book for children. I say: it's a book, and anyone who wants to read it can read it.
I enjoyed Old Man's War immensely. A space war story with fast action, vivid characters, moral complexity and cool speculative physics, set in a future you almost want to live into, and a universe you sincerely hope you don't live in already.
The thing that 'Glee' has successfully done that no other TV show has is that they're just honest - but they don't tell you what's right or wrong. They don't tell you what to agree with or what to believe in.
My films don't have instant impact because they're dense with ideas that people have not thought about. It takes a while for the American public to wrap its head around some of the things I'm saying.
'Moonlight' isn't an issue film. It's not about addiction, it's not about sexuality, it's not about identity. It's about all these different layers, because they are all a part of the character.
I think good kids TV has got to have layers. It has to have compelling characters that everyone loves, but you can't dumb it down.
A good writer cannot avoid having social consciousness. I don't mean this about small pieces of writing, but about a big book. If it's a big book, there has to be more than one undertow.
There's some things that you wouldn't tackle in a children's book because it would be beyond, not the mental capabilities, but the experience of someone under the age of say ten or eleven to encompass. But that field is smaller than you might think. They can easily cope with death and things like that; they know about it and it's a subject that often preoccupies them.
A novel compared to film writing can allow the author to be more indulgent, and that extends to the characters and the story being told.
A lot of people have something to say about 'Wuthering Heights,' but nobody quite nails it.
I don't see how 'Hunchback' could ever appeal to children. It's a very adult story that deals with repressed sexuality.
I write plays about big, intense subjects.
People would react to books by authors like James and Austen almost on a gut level. I think it was not so much the message, because the best authors do not have obvious messages. These authors were disturbing to my students because of their perspectives on life.
I think 'Inception' was a sick idea, but they didn't do it correctly.
I think Shrek makes an effect in older people. And there are many things in the movie that you saw that are not for kids. Kids would not understand certain things.
It's a fantastic privilege to spend three or four hundred pages with a reader. You have time to go into certain questions that are painful or difficult or complicated. That's one thing that appeals to me very much about the novel form.
The challenge with 'Watchmen' is making sure that the ideas that were in the book got into the movie. That was my biggest stretch. I wanted people to watch the movie and get it. It's one of those things where, over time, it has happened more.
