The pretence that numbers are not the humble creation of man, but are the exacting language of the Universe and therefore possess the secret of all things, is comforting, terrifying and mesmeric.

There are those who think that Zeffirelli's Hamlet is the way to treat Shakespeare. I think that cinema can handle much more. We somehow expect cinema to provide us with meaning, to console us. But that's not the purpose of art.

For so many filmmakers, cinema is a means to an end.

I don't think we've seen any cinema yet. I think we've seen 100 years of illustrated text.

Painting is the supreme form of expression; you don't need to 'read' painting.

Life is full of a thousand red herrings, and it takes the history of a civilisation to work out which are the red herrings and which aren't.

Cinema basically examines a personality first and the body afterward.