My wife thinks I have an obsession with social class. So I guess I have an obsession with social class. It probably stems from feeling like an outcast.
'Apocalypse Now' does not alienate us or deconstruct itself. In fact, it welcomes us in.
It's much easier to make a movie with kind of stylistic pyrotechnics because you can hide behind that if there's a gap in the story.
The key to humor is often self-loathing or sarcasm. In a sense, that's how self-loathing is made palatable.
Sean Penn has announced his retirement from acting about 72 times.
What I do have to get across is the truth of the moment within the given scene. It's my job, as a director and screenwriter, to create the environment in which all those moments will come together eventually.