The problem with cinema nowadays is that it's a math problem. People can read a film mathematically; they know when this comes or that comes; in about 30 minutes, it's going to be over and have an ending. So film has become a mathematical solution. And that is boring, because art is not mathematical.

Look at the birth of anything; it's always more violent than anything you could ever imagine.

Creativity is very self-indulgent.

I've done collaborations in all my movies, and I think it's part of what I enjoy about the process. This kind of intimacy that you create. Because it becomes very intimate.

If you create something that is essentially alien to you - as a man - and make a film about woman, the more I can surround myself with woman and combine it with my soul's point of view, the more I become a stranger in a strange land.

And to be fair, most documentaries are half an hour too long, anyway. Let's not kid ourselves. Most movies are an hour too long. I will say that the internet has changed everything in terms of distribution and because of iTunes and other outlets like that, length is no longer something you really think about, in my opinion. It's irrelevant.

I am a child of cinema, and I am a cineaste, so everything I do is a reference to something I've heard or experienced or seen. And we all do it, we all steal. The ones who claim they don't, are obviously lying, because you do. You just have to make it your own.