I was born with this bow tie made of celluloid on my collar.

If there is an auteur who influenced me - and there is only one - that is Charlie Chaplin. And he never won an Oscar.

As Claude LeLouche said, his favorite American director is Sergio Leone. Not because I would be American, but because I was dealing with subject matter that an American could have just as easily dealt with.

America is so varied and exciting that after six months, you go back and find it completely changed.

Charlie Chaplin, too, through spectacle, contraband certain ideas, put them through, ideas that even today are not being expressed by great statesmen and politicians.

I began to understand that 'America' in reality belonged to the whole world and not just to Americans. The idea of America had already been invented by the philosophers, the vagabonds, the dispersed of this earth, long before the Spanish ships got there. Those whom we call Americans have only rented it for a time. If they behave badly, we can discover another 'America'. The contract can be canceled at any time.

I've shot films in Africa. I've shot in America - English is not my language.