The resistance to black-and-white is huge, in the way that you have to sell the film. It's difficult to distribute around the world.

I look at the story, I look at the idea and just try to think of it in terms of that whole body of myth and see where the characters fit in and what they ought to be doing-all those archetypes are there to play with.

Movie-making is the process of turning money into light. All they have at the end of the day is images flickering on a wall.

Black-and-white gives you that sort of parallel world. Also, it's very close to the condition of dreaming, to the unconscious.

The more extreme and the more expressed that passion is, the more unbearable does life seem without it. It reminds us that if passion dies or is denied, we are partly dead.

It's so easy to manipulate an audience, but it's nearly always clear that you are being manipulated. I think even people that are not critically attuned are aware of cynical manipulation in film.

I was in Japan, and my assistant director had worked with Kurosawa. I used quite of number of Kurosawa's crew.