Art does imitate life, and the Rodney King beating was a real event. It's a part of all our consciousness, and there's no value in ignoring it.
As our society progresses and genuine experience becomes a riskier and riskier enterprise, so the desire for it will increase.
Character and emotionality don't always have to be relegated to quieter, more simple constructs.
Ever since I saw Oliver and my mother covered my eyes when Shaney Wallace got smacked on the head, I can't see anything which is on any level scary.
I did a pilot for Anything But Love in 1988 that didn't sell.
I don't believe in censorship in any form.
I don't want to be made pacified or made comfortable. I like stuff that gets your adrenaline going.
I like high impact movies.
I respond to movies that get in your face, that have the ability to be provocative or challenge you, that take some risks.
I think violence in a cinematic context can be, if handled in a certain way, very seductive.
I wanted to re-evaluate the us vs them paranoia in the hope that we don't repeat mistakes we've made in the past.
If the film has a seductive nature at all, it's there to draw the viewer in, but I create the visuals in a way that seems absolutely inevitable to me.
If there's specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies.
In 1994, I heard the story of how in 1961, 129 men on board a Russian submarine had faced up to this major nuclear incident.
In the case of Blue Steel, the gun was a kind of magical component in the turning point of an already unstable person's psyche.
It was interesting to utilize a strong female character and a male character who has great capacity for vulnerability.
It's irrelevant who or what directed a movie, the important thing is that you either respond to it or you don't.
My criteria for doing a television series never changed. I wanted more stability, I wanted more of a sense of family, I wanted to do light comedy.
My movement from painting to film was a very conscious one.
Obviously I don't have a crystal ball, but there's a threat that this tensely balanced society we live in will erupt at any moment, so I chose to respond to that as opposed to showing an implausible environment.
On the other hand, I believe there's hope, because the breakdown and the repair are happening simultaneously.
One of the elements in the film that really fascinated me was not to look at the world in bi-polar terms of us vs them or east vs west, which was a by-product of the Cold War.
One should make morals judgements for oneself.
Our film examines the heroism, courage and prowess of the Soviet submarine force in ways never seen before.
Peeping tom is a brilliant piece of film-making because the subjective viewpoint of the camera when it kills puts you, as a viewer, in a position of culpability.
Right now, there's the illusion of order and civilization, but there's a tremendous amount of economic tension in this country and the educational system is constantly eroding.
Something becomes personal when it deviates from the norm.
Strange Days is a fictional film, so there was liberty to create a canvas that acknowledges a real flash-point society.
The Communist regime didn't consider this to be a shining moment in history and assigned no heroism to it. They classified it as merely an accident.
The technology shown in Strange Days is an extrapolation of feeding that hunger.
The urge to purge the material I come up with is, I guess, an ongoing process.
There should be more women directing; I think there's just not the awareness that it's really possible.
This is my personal opinion, but obviously since we're in America, if you want to own a gun you should be able to own a gun.
When he brought it to me four years ago, Rodney King had just arrived, I was involved in the clean-up of L.A. and I guess it was part of my experience.
When I made my first film, I didn't think of it as directing, so it wasn't like I set out to become a director.
When James Cameron brought me the script, which I developed with both Cameron and Jay Cocks, I wanted to make it a thriller, an action film, but with a conscience, and I found that it had elements of social realism.
Whereas painting is a more rarefied art form, with a limited audience, I recognized film as this extraordinary social tool that could reach tremendous numbers of people.
You never think the universe will reward your first choice - it just doesn't work like that.
You shouldn't be able to buy a gun over the counter quickly - it should take two to three months to be certified.
If there's specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies. It's irrelevant who or what directed a movie, the important thing is that you either respond to it or you don't. There should be more women directing; I think there's just not the awareness that it's really possible. It is.
[About her 1995 film, "Strange Days"] "If you hold a mirror up to society, and you don't like what you see, you can't fault the mirror. It's a mirror. I think that on the eve of the millennium, a point in time only four years from now, the clock is ticking, the same social issues and racial tensions still exist, the environment still needs reexamination so you don't forget it when the lights come up. "Strange Days" is provocative. Without revealing too much, I would say that it feels like we are driving toward a highly chaotic, explosive, volatile, Armageddon-like ending. Obviously, the riot footage came out of the LA riots. I mean, I was there. I experienced that. I was part of the cleanup afterwards, so I was very aware of the environment. I mean, it really affected me. It was etched indelibly on my psyche. So obviously some of the imagery came from that. I don't like violence. I am very interested, however, in truth. And violence is a fact of our lives, a part of the social context in which we live. But other elements of the movie are love and hope and redemption. Our main character throws up after seeing this hideous experience. The toughest decision was not wanting to shy away from anything, trying to keep the truth of the moment, of the social environment. It's not that I condone violence. I don't. It's an indictment. I would say the film is cautionary, a wake-up call, and that I think is always valuable."
Directed the music video for the New Order song, "Touched by the Hand of God", which starred Bill Paxton.
Member of jury at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2003
Member of the jury at the Venice Film Festival in 1998.
Was member of the dramatic jury at the Sundance Film Festival in 1990.
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