Film is simply the most complex way you can express yourself

Classicism becomes avant-garde when everyone else is doing their utmost to develop new stylistic forms. I think it's healthy to return to classical forms.

I give the spectator the possibility of participating. The audience completes the film by thinking about it; those who watch must not be just consumers ingesting spoon-fed images.

I'm not really a happy person. It's a question of temperament. I have a tendency toward melancholy. You can feel quite happily melancholic.

An artist is someone who should raise questions rather than give answers. I have no message.

If I tell the audience what they should think, then I am robbing them of their own imagination and their own capacity of deciding what's important to them.

I don't need a psychiatrist. I can sort out my fears with my work. That's the privilege of all artists, to be able to sort out their unhappiness and their neuroses in order to create something.

I try to get closer to reality, to get close to the contradictions. The cinema world can be a real world rather than a dream world.

Drama lives on conflict. If you're trying to deal with social issues seriously, there's no way of avoiding violence, which is so present in society.

Film is 24 lies per second at the service of truth, or at the service of the attempt to find the truth.

At its best, film should be like a ski jump. It should give the viewer the option of taking flight, while the act of jumping is left up to him.

Vulnerability is strength. It is being honest about who you are & about your experiences.

I’ve been involved in a number of cults both as a leader and a follower. You have more fun as a follower but you make more money as a leader.

I'm of two minds about doing any interviews these days. It seems a lot of the world is out to play gotcha with me. I guess they always go after people these days. It's sport.

Mingle a little folly with your wisdom; a little nonsense now and then is pleasant. [Lat., Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem: Dulce est desipere in loco.

So also there are tides and floods in the affairs of men, which in some are slight and may be kept within bounds, but in others they overmaster everything.

[Advice to Bessie Smith:] Let your soul do the singin'.

Sometimes the simplest pictures are the hardest to get.

She found herself thinking of how it would feel to be safely trapped in his arms, with no more possibility to choose.

Hey everybody, we're all gonna get laid!

We are hoping and praying that they will not be able to deny what the Lord has ordained.