You know, I find it very strange when movies that I made that were just excoriated - I mean that I was just vilified for - are now looked at as classics.

Yeah, there's absolutely. I mean, remember when The Searchers came out, it was a relatively big hit for a Western, and I think it made 5 million bucks - I don't even think it made that.

I felt that the Star Wars series became very pretentious as time went on. Just heavy and leaden.

I find that screenwriting is at best kind of a hackwork in some ways.

I mean, my people were very, very simple. They were peasant people, you know?

There is a certain kind of respect for authenticity today that there wasn't back in the days when they did 'Cleopatra,' where everything looked like a giant motel. People want to have it be authentic in the look, and authentic in the way people behave.