SOURCE: Sayles, John, Joan M. West, and Dennis West. “Not Playing by the Usual Rules: An Interview with John Sayles.” Cineaste 24, no. 4 (1999): 28-31.

In the following interview, Sayles discusses his use of the threatening landscape of Alaska as the setting for Limbo.

At a time when most American ‘independent’ films are conceived by their directors as stepping stones to an industry career, as audition pieces for the next available studio job for hire, the career of John Sayles is all the more remarkable. Over the last twenty years, dating from his self-financed debut effort, Return of the Secaucus Seven (1979), Sayles has written and directed a dozen theatrical feature films, including such memorable works as The Brother from Another Planet (1984), Matewan (1987), City of Hope (1990), Passion Fish (1992), Lone Star (1996), and Men with Guns (1997).

The award-winning novelist and short-story writer got his first filmmaking experience by writing genre scripts for Roger...