Here was opportunity to make an audience walk and move, be sociable in a way never dreamed of by the rigors of cinema-watching, in circumstances where many different perspectives could be brought to bear on a series of phenomena associated with the topics under consideration. Yet all the time it was a subjective creation under the auspices of light and sound, dealing with a large slice of cinema's vocabulary.

My heroes among filmmakers would be people like Buñuel and Pasolini, who were of very high cinematic intelligence, but tread on a lot of toes.

I don't believe in the deplorable notion of realism in the cinema: you can over-reach it, and it becomes as false as convention.

I got in trouble with the stern-faced Russians who didn't want me to create a guy who is mortal.

Cinema basically examines a personality first and the body afterward.

As you probably know, I'm often accused of intellectual exhibitionism and all forms of elitism. Although I can understand this point of view, it's a rather wasted argument because, if we regard areas of information as being elite and therefore somehow not usable, it means our centre-ground of activity becomes very, very impoverished.

English culture is highly literary-based.