'Hard Boiled' is my last film in Hong Kong, before I moved to the U.S. It is the one film which is most accepted by the audience in the West.
When you're supposed to be close and friends in the film, the moment you're talking as friends off the set, it makes it that much better when you're filming.
A film like Genevieve to my contemporaries is not a film made years ago, but last week or last year. They see me as I was then, not as I am now.
Film-makers in Belgium are seen as arts and crafts makers. It is a small country. There is not really a film industry there at all.
I don't know what my favorite film of mine is... But I think the most important film I was in was 'Glory'.
When I make a film, I never want the film to become a vehicle of social propaganda. If I wanted to do that, I'd make documentaries.
I'm not making films for critics, I'm making films for people to go out and enjoy.
When you work so hard on making a film, it's all worthwhile when you get to experience seeing that film with an audience who thoroughly enjoy it and react to the movie.
I teach film directing, inasmuch as you can. It's not really possible to teach film direction, but I sit there as a sort of testimony of experience and know-how, I suppose.
I think a film is a failure if it doesn't have an emotional effect. That's the film's failure. Not if it doesn't deliver a message, but if it doesn't have emotional effect or visceral effect.
For many years I wanted to do a film, but I never had the courage to clear my desk and say, 'OK I'll take a year off and do a film.'
It's very cool to be able to say that my first real film was 'Footloose' and my second film I got to star alongside Tom Cruise and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Walt Disney wasn't making films for kids. Neither were the Muppets. A lot of the great, really cool films, they weren't making them for kids.
Sci-fi films are the epic films of the day because we can no longer put 10,000 extras in the scene - but we can draw thousands of aliens with computers.
I made a French film called 'Merry Christmas' which is a very European film. It's a World War I piece.
I did two films that have a great following. One is 'Caddyshack,' one is 'Tron.' To tell you the truth, most people don't know that it's me in both films.
You can have a great character in a really bad script, and the film will never be seen. It's just too much work to commit to a film and not have it released.
Still, the film nearly didn't happen a number of times. There were great arguments with United Artists about how to reduce the cost because they were nothing if not conscious of the price of the film.
The great thing about filming a film is that you all have your final day's shooting, but you always know that you're all going to be coming back for the premiere.
I'd like to think at some point instead of it being a woman's film or a man's film, it is just a great story, and both sexes can go and get the same enjoyment out of it.
As I began making my feature films, it was a great adventure. It was about constructing something I saw in my head or I had designed on storyboards and capturing that on film.
