I was making films about American society, and it is true that I never felt at home there, except perhaps when my wife and I lived on a farm in the San Fernando Valley. But I always wanted my characters to be more than cyphers for the failings of their world. And I never had to look too hard to find a part of myself in them

Throughout my pictures I employ a lighting which is not naturalistic.

At the time I belonged to the socialist party, and Hitler came to power.

And in movies you must be a gambler. To produce films is to gamble.

I worked for UFA as a set designer, you know.

In the 19th century, you had bourgeois art without politics - an almost frozen idea of what beauty is.

My idea at this time, which was slowly developing, was to create a comedie humaine with little people, average people - samples from every period in American life.