Quoting
Luis Buñuel
[I]n Madrid, Nicholas Ray invited me to lunch and asked how I'd managed to make such interesting movies on such small budgets. I told him that money had never been a problem for me; what I'd had, I'd had. It was either that or nothing at all; all I had to do was arrange my story to fit my budget. In Mexico, I never had a shooting schedule longer than twenty-four days (except for Robinson Crusoe). In fact, I felt strongly that the size of my budgets was a measure of my freedom.
"You're a famous director," I said to Ray. '"Why not try an experiment? You've just finished a picture that cost five million dollars. Why not try one for four hundred thousand dollars and see for yourself how much freer you are?"
"But you don't understand!" he cried. "If I did that in Hollywood, everyone would think I was going to pieces. They'd say I was on the skids, and I'd never make another movie!"
It was a sad conversation, because he was absolutely serious.