- Heaven's Gate (1980) left few viewers merely cold. There was something else there that aroused antipathy in many, and the anger of the critics is still discernible in their condemnations of it (whether they are right or wrong). That something else, I think, is a pervasive nihilism that runs through the film from its advertising slogan - "What one loves in life are the things that fade" - to its climactic and violent reworking of history. That nostalgic-sounding slogan is finally reductive. It narrows the world instead of enlarging it.
- [on Interiors (1978)] One of the rare instances in modern American movie history in which an artist has been allowed to make a picture because of what it might mean to his creative development, success or failure.
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