Quotes

[on Runaway Nightmare (1982) ] I wrote previously that I hoped this would not be the film that I was remembered for. However, the new cinephile community has humbled me into reexamining my journey. Each frame of this 8460-foot rediscovered masterpiece tells a better story than the sum of its parts projected on a screen.

[Introduction at the Austin 'Ritz Cinema' 2014 premiere of Runaway Nightmare (1982) ] The marque out front says that this is 'The life's work of a dedicated lunatic.' I would like to thank those responsible for that surpassing compliment.

[On directing amateur actors on Runaway Nightmare (1982)] Most of the performers were non-cinema actors, and I knew from coaching drama that you must first keep amateurs from over-acting. Also, most/many actors are scared moments before performing, and rely on a patient, trusted director to assist them through one scene to the next. So having started as an actor in no-rehearsal, one-take TV, I tried to be an actor's director. when the camera rolls, even some pros will mug to avoid (what they fear as) being dull and wooden. So their temptation is to work outside-in, to get grandiloquent and arch their brows, vex their lips, as one might act in a Clyde Fitch play. The problem is that a stage facial gesture will appear as a 15-foot eyebrow flying madly across the theater screen.

God couldn't be everywhere, that's why he made film critics.

I'm a carny; I look down on no one.

The most important adventure and education choice you might consider is to work one season, that's three months, on a traveling carnival. Best if you do it while you're still young because the midway experience will teach you more about life, people, romance, failure, accomplishment, fear and courage than you might learn after seven years and a fortune spent at Harvard.