Quotes by Mark Rydell

“He was talking to me about bull-fighting, which was one of his passions,”

“So he was really a tortured fellow, ... He felt very lonely during that period. But he felt that it helped him. And it did.”

“For 30 years he was the conscience of Hollywood,”

“I remember thinking at that moment that he was not long for this world. Anybody who could do that had such a reckless personality that sooner or later it was going to catch up with him,”

“Ive always felt badly that Jimmy wasnt treated with the kind of respect that I thought he deserved, ... Having known him and known how committed and determined he was as an artist and how tortured he was as a human being, and knowing the agonies of his childhood, I felt that this was a good chance to make an honorable psychological portrait of him.”

“I consider his performance to be a miracle, ... I think hes one of the most talented people Ive ever met. You know, hes 22 years old. ... He just transformed himself. At times it seemed eerie. It was like cloning or channeling James Dean. There were moments where I thought, My God, this is really bizarre.”

“The picture is not a documentary, ... Its a drama that has to be crafted. Reality is not art. You have to make choices when youre trying to make something work. And the choices we make I think are accurate. There arent any lies in it. There are assumptions made that are critical and necessary.”

“Its enough to say he was in the movie business for 16 months and here we are, talking about him 46 years later, ... Thats a testimonial to the impact that he had, the power of his personality and his talent, which is indisputable.”

Its very difficult to break into motion pictures, but its oddly easier for directors today because of independent films and cable, who have inherited for the most part those films of substance that the studios are reluctant to finance.

Theres evidence of a social decline in direct proportion to technology and the industrialization of the motion picture industry.