I do believe in [Robert] Bresson's method of creation through omission, not through addition.

I didn't just see myself as a film director here [in Life And Nothing More], but also as an observer of people who had been condemned to death.

A work of art doesn't exist outside the perception of the audience.

I had intended to make another film, called Pocket Money, which was to be about children at a school. I was very much intrigued by the story [of Close Up] - it came into my dreams and I was very much influenced by it. So I called my producer and asked that we put aside Pocket Money and start something else, and he agreed.

It is a very important film, Life And Nothing More, in that what was filmed was inspired by a journey I had made just three days after an earthquake. And I speak not only of the film itself but also of the experience of being in that place, where only three days before 50,000 people had died.

I don't generally derive my stories from novels. I try to turn into film things I have felt or experienced.

I wasn't searching for a common denominator - I started wondering about the challenge of working in other cultures. What I reached was the sudden acknowledgment of the universal aspect of filmmaking.