I think that what's important as a director is to give your actors the feeling that they're protected, the feeling of confidence, the feeling that if they make mistakes, then as a director, you'll know how to help them. If you're able to convey that, then the actors will give you wonderful performances. As well as the author, you have to write scenes that give the actors the opportunity to show what they're capable of.

You become a film critic because you're interested in film. I don't know whether knowing so much about cinema leads you to make better films, but it certainly can't hurt.

I consider all my films experiments.

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

Usually music is used to hide a film's problems.

For me, it's always difficult when a historical film claims to depict or represent a reality that none of us can know, that is always different. It's always the case. We never know what happened then. So my approach with the narrator is to question that, to leave that open, to underline the fact that this is uncertain.

On the set I make jokes I can't get too involved, or it turns into sentimental soup. I try to keep it light.