Thanks for that article. I didn't know he was "retired" but it looks like he hasn't directed anything since 2019 so maybe he meant it. (He's still producing films so he hasn't left cinema entirely.)

Also it's good to see he addressed the controversy about the poisoned cat. The scene really is brutal, I would say unnecessarily long and graphic, but at least he says the cat wasn't actually harmed. You never know with a lot of non-USA films where animal cruelty laws don't exist, and it's cheaper to actually kill an animal on camera than to fake its death.