At that time, when I started, in the '50s, cinema was very classical in its aims.

When I started my first film, there were three women directors in France. Their films were OK, but I was different. It's like when you start to jump and you put the pole very high - you have to jump very high. I thought, I have to use cinema as a language.

I know people could tell incredible stories. People have been in concentration camps, or women being raped, or a man going to war and not recovering from it. People have been robbed and beaten. A lot of people have had strong events in their life, which I didn't.

I think I got people confidence because I was not looking at them like insects that I would film.

Hands are the tool of the painter, the artist.

I tried to find a language for the film - not just telling stories. I picked the Picasso painting because it said more than I could explain. I need images, I need representation which deals in other means than reality. We have to use reality but get out of it. That's what I try to do all the time.

It's nice to think that we have in ourselves the energy. It's somewhere, but it's sleeping sometimes. I try to wake it up when I need it.