American movies and music deliver themes of freedom innocence and power that appeal to others - partly because America itself was put together out of a multiplicity of national traditions.

One important theme is the extent to which one can ever correct an error especially outside any frame of religious forgiveness. All of us have done something we regret - how we manage to remove that from our conscience or whether that's even possible interested me.

I had to do this very aggressive big score in a very short time and knowing that in the beginning middle and end would be this very very famous theme but I still had to weave a score around it and make it work as a score was really challenging.

There is a common theme though in the stories I have told which are usually associations of characters or families that are formed outside of a family circle.

You never know when some small thing will lead to a big idea. Travel is very inspirational - but it's in the ordinary that I find my themes of love and work and family.

Louis Malle was the best filmmaker I've ever worked with. He was such an artist. He was dealing with the theme of innocence and experience.

Our theme for this year's festivities Dreams and Challenges of Asian Pacific Americans speaks to the many generations of Asian Pacific Americans who worked hard to overcome economic hardship racism and other barriers in their pursuit of the American dream.

People don't think their dreams amount to much but when I ask them to examine them for common themes they surprise themselves at how accurate they are! They see that their dreams have value.

You all know that each title in the Chronicles has a chess theme that's partly because of the overall design of the Chronicles themselves - the game of chess as an analogue of the game of life.

It was by design that we mostly used pictures that you could not necessarily see what was going on and that didn't really focus in on the band but instead focused in on a theme.