Michael’s Reviews > Room to Dream > Status Update

“Everything is relative. ‘The Straight Story’ is a peaceful story, but there’s violence in it, too. When Alvin’s lawnmower threatens to go out of control, that’s very violent for Alvin, but it’s balanced — there has to be balance in a film. Once you start down a path you’ve got rules, and you have to obey the rules of the path you’re on, and you can’t go down two roads at the same time.”

“I think things happen the way they’re supposed to happen. When you get old you remember the way it was when you were doing your stuff, and you compare it with what’s happening today and you can’t even begin to explain the way things were to young people, because they don’t give a shit. Life moves on. One day these days will be their memories, and they won’t be able to tell anyone about that, either.”

I can’t talk about what the Red Room is, but I remember when the idea came and how thrilling it was to me. It opened up a thing in ‘Twin Peaks’ and led to many things. So it’s the pilot and the Red Room and where they led — put those things together and you’ve got the real ‘Twin Peaks.’ It’s a beautiful delicate thing, and there’s more going on than meets the eye, and there’s mystery in the air.

“I learned about failure, and in a way failure is a beautiful thing because when the dust settles there’s nowhere to go but up? and it’s a freedom. You can’t lose more, but you can gain. You’re down and everybody knows you’re down and that you fucked up and you’re a loser, and you just say, ‘Okay,’ and you keep working.”

Before I started meditating I worried that doing it would make me lose my edge, and I didn’t want to lose the fire to make stuff. I found out it gives you more fire to make stuff and more happiness in the doing and way more of an edge. People think anger is an edge, but anger is a weakness that poisons you and the environment around you. It’s not a healthy thing and it’s not good for relationships, for sure.

“While I was driving him back to the train station he said, ‘David, I think you should come to the Center for Advanced Film Studies in Los Angeles, California.’ That’s like telling somebody, You have just won five hundred trillion dollars! Or even greater than that! It’s like telling somebody, You’re going to live forever!”

“When I first met David he was doing Paris street scenes […] One day he came in with an oil painting of a boat by a dock. He was putting the paint on really thick at that point and a moth had flown into the painting, and as it struggled to get out of the paint it made this beautiful swirl in the sky. I remember he got so excited about that, seeing that death mixed in with his painting.”