John Milius

‘m a general, I do something. I go out and fight wars and win them.

Most artists think they’re frauds anyway.

I hardly said a word to my wife until I said ‘yes’ to divorce.

Most of the good executives do pretty well. Because to be a good executive you have to be strong, and you have to have a simple attribute that people have forgotten about – courage.

I also thought of myself as the Sonny Barger of the film industry.

I mean, the old film critics just excoriated me.

Yeah, I think that’s it… It’s like Jesse James. He became really popular because he lasted so long. You know, there is some degree of truth to the fact that time will dignify anything, too.

I’ve always been able to survive by writing, though.

A lot of people thought of me as a threat to Western civilization.

I’ve always had trouble with authority.

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.

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.

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

The filmmakers always have a great level of control.

No, you’re either born a writer, a storyteller, or you’re not.

Also, they don’t understand – writing is language. The use of language. The language to create image, the language to create drama. It requires a skill of learning how to use language.

Films are always pretentious. There’s nothing more pretentious than a filmmaker.

Writing requires a great deal of skill, just like painting does. People don’t want to learn those skills.

Egotism is not a good quality. It’s not something to be admired or even tolerated. It wouldn’t be tolerated in a field commander and it shouldn’t be tolerated in a movie director.

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

Matter of fact, the style that people use today, I invented in a way.

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.

You never know when you’re going to be considered un-hip… The people that really pass judgment on you really have nothing to do with what you do, usually.

I became a loner. I became a mountain man. A lot of those things are very good qualities and they help you do your work, help you be singular and keep the artistic integrity of your work intact, but they don’t make it very easy to live your life.

I suppose when I started out I would have liked to have been the darling of critics or something, but everybody wants to be loved and admired.

I think Francis at half form is better than anybody else by 50%, you know? I think it’s just that he has never… he has a late pick of the things that are ambitious enough for him.

A lot of directors don’t know what they want to do. Every director I’ve seen that was a good director that I’ve admired knew exactly what he wanted to do. They didn’t sit there and think about it.

Everybody’s a filmmaker today.