It’s unfortunate that we don’t live in a time now where a polarizing film is a positive. Like in the ’70s, if you made a film like Straw Dogs, and half the people hate it and half the people think it’s a masterpiece, that’s viewed as cool. Now it’s not. Now if you don’t get unified critical acclaim, your film is viewed as a failure. There’s no badge of honor in having a high-end critic bash you and have it in a sense prove that the film is not down the middle. Now you get e-mails from people that are like, “Oh, I’m so sorry about the Times.” That doesn’t prove anything. That’s great. They’re angry. That’s great.
Read the rest of the interview here.