I may film scenes I had no intention of filming; things suggest themselves on location, and we improvise. I try not to think about it too much. Then, in the cutting room, I take the film and start to put it together, and only then do I begin to get an idea of what it is about.

Hollywood doesn't believe in the death penalty for anyone except people who get cable TV without paying for it. Hollywood is like being nowhere and talking to nobody about nothing.

Everyone has understood me in his own way. But I would have to understand myself first in order to judge - and so far, I haven't.

Favourite directors change, like favorite authors. I had a passion for Gide and Stein and Faulkner. But now they're no use to me anymore. I've assimilated them - so, enough, they are a closed chapter. This also applies to film directors.

I never think in terms of alienation; it's the others who do. Alienation means one thing to Hegel, another to Marx and yet another to Freud; so it is not possible to give a single definition, one that will exhaust the subject. It is a question bordering on philosophy, and I'm not a philosopher nor a sociologist. My business is to tell stories, to narrate with images - nothing else. If I do make films about alienation - to use that word that is so ambiguous - they are about characters, not about me.

Before each new setup, I chase everyone off the set in order to be alone and look through the camera. In that moment, the film seems quite easy. But then the others come in and everything becomes difficult.

There are many ways of communicating. Some hold the theory that new forms of communication between people can be obtained through hallucinogenic drugs.