I've made films about the middle classes because I know them best. Everyone talks about what he knows best.

Till now I have never shot a scene without taking account of what stands behind the actors because the relationship between people and their surroundings is of prime importance.

I want my characters to suggest the background in themselves, even when it is not visible. I want them to be so powerfully realized that we cannot imagine them apart from their physical and social context even when we see them in empty space.

A film you can explain in words is not a real film.

It's untrue to say the colors I use are not those of reality. They are real: The red I use is red; the green, green; blue, blue; and yellow, yellow. It's a matter of arranging them differently from the way I find them, but they are always real colors. So it's not true that when I tint a road or a wall, they become unreal. They stay real, though colored differently for my scene.

The script is simply a series of notes for the film.

Do you really think a man must be strong, masculine, dominating, and the woman frail, obedient and sensitive? This is a conventional idea. Reality is quite different.