I think there's as much violence, in a way, as a scene with two women having a cup of coffee in a Ruth Rendell novel - in terms of emotional violence and the violence you can inflict with language - as there is in the most graphic kind of serial killer/slasher novel you can think of.
The romance stuff is easy. A sex scene... that's hard, because you don't know what to do. Those scenes are awkward.
When I sit down to write a scene, I have a plan in mind, and I'm thrilled when a character disregards my goals and takes the story to a place I hadn't imagined.
Onstage I'm the one in control - I'm not at the mercy of how an editor chooses to put the scene together later. I can do things onstage that I would never do in real life. It's very freeing.
I've had some painful experiences in my life, but I feel like I'm trivializing them by using them for a scene in a movie. I don't want to do that. It just makes me feel kind of dirty for having done that.
I recently saw the movie about Ray Charles, and there's a scene where he falls down and the mother doesn't help him. She says, I don't want anyone to treat you like a cripple. I've fallen down before, and Molly will say, get up and just go.
I couldn't really relate to the fraternity or party scene, to the people out in the mall every day protesting one thing or another. I felt like there was no one I could relate to.
I'm very heavily involved in the editorial post-production process, and the camera - it's just such a big part of my storytelling language. I like creating the tension; I like creating the emotion through the movement of my camera, or the lack of movement through my camera, depending on what fits the scene best.
Holland is a really small country, but with a very strong club and festival scene. Dance music has been huge in Holland since the late eighties. So there were a lot of opportunities for producers and DJs to release records and play live.
Where is this Hollywood scene, where is it? I'd like to find it one day... If I want to go out and have a good time, I go to New York.
That's the only way I can control my movie. If you shoot everything, then everything is liable to end up in the movie. If you have a vision, you don't have to cover every scene.
Certain things can't be approximated, so I'm always interested in getting in another way, one which makes the reader bend in closer to the scene even if that scene, especially if that scene, is painful... Brutal language isn't necessarily the most truthful way of describing a brutal moment.
I do admit to being challenging, but it's always for the work, it's never personal. I will walk out on a scene if it's all lit and ready to go but it's not happening.
And that's why I chose on purpose not to have a death scene. We've seen them in a million movies and it's too much like cranking the tears out. I didn't want that scene.
There is nothing more, I guess, cannibalistic than the metal or the hard rock scene, it seems.
I like to tell students, 'I didn't burst on to the literary scene.' I'm never good at things at the beginning. I was terrible at the start. I need to work and work.
I think with animation there's a certain freedom that you're given. You don't have a thought at the back of your mind, that worry that you'll have to cut and go back to the top of the scene. You're not working with anyone else from the cast. It's just you.
I love Dickens. I love the way he sets a scene.
I'll generally write out every scene that's in the film on a couple of pieces of paper, just with a little one-line. And then I can scan it a bit and go, 'This first third of the film, generally, I'm kind of calm.' Then I might do something on one piece of paper that just relates to the energy of the character.
The stuff that I got in trouble for, the casting for The Godfather or the flag scene in Patton, was the stuff that was remembered, and was considered the good work.
Some writers can produce marvelous plots without planning it out, but I can't. In particular I need to know the structure of a novel: what's going to happen in each chapter and each scene.
I think you get the most honest performances when an actor shows up to set with their lines memorized. That's a very important thing that a lot of people seem to forget. You have a pre-conceived notion of what you want the scene to be, but once you get there, that goes out the window and it turns out to be a way that you never imagined.
Any time you get two people in a room who disagree about anything, the time of day, there is a scene to be written. That's what I look for.
I have no memory for what happens in what books. I don't know when I might remember a scene, but beats me what book it's in because there are 14 of them now.
A court is like a scene, people want to see attractive people.
They did offer me a chance of being a V in the crowd, but it's not my scene. I think they just thought it would be fun for me to do that, but I don't know. I heard that Stan Lee appears in every movie of his.
After all, in today's music scene every band seems to steal from other bands.
And this system sorted out the Chechen war in just 20 days. This way, I used the President's power, he didn't use me. It wasn't hard for me to leave - it isn't my scene. I have nothing to do there.
As soon as there is language, generality has entered the scene.
On 'Mad Men,' I have a bit of an advantage because I know who gets better as they repeat a scene and who's best at the beginning.
The other guy I dug a lot was Burroughs because he was a smart man already; he learned it through the druggie pool - the street scene of an old aristocratic kind of man.
Pixar has been compared to fine furniture makers who polish the backs of drawers - even if you don't see everything in a particular scene, you still feel that every little detail has been met.
I love having 30 shots of every scene.
I love 'Troy.' I love Brad Pitt's character - when he went to Troy, he just ran over it. Then this particular scene where they made this big old horse or something out of wood, and they hid inside the wood.
Once the state has been founded, there can no longer be any heroes. They come on the scene only in uncivilized conditions.
I like being behind the scene.