With mental patients in an institution, they give them basket weaving, finger painting and things like that to do, because the very act of working with your hands is healthful and therapeutic. It’s the same thing with making a film, which is a handmade product. You have to write it, you have to go out and shoot it, then we come here and we put the film together and put the music in. For a period of time, you get two rewards: You get the reward of distraction — you don’t think about the outside world, and you’re faced with solvable problems, and if they’re not solvable, you don’t die because of it. And then, if it’s the right film, you get to live in a fake reality for a number of months. So if I’m making a picture like The Purple Rose of Cairo or Bullets Over Broadway or Everyone Says I Love You, for several months, I get to live with very beautiful women and very witty men and they have costumes, and the sets are beautiful. It’s a very pleasant way to waste your life.
— Woody Allen, on why he never stops making movies. (via leitch)
