I do other sorts of things. I act in other people's movies. I direct operas. I write books.

[This kind of strange mythology about me.] I've pulled a huge steamboat over a mountain; I've done a feature film with all the actors acting under hypnosis - things that are very unusual.

What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.

Only the poets can hold the country together, and I wanted to hold Germany together.

The deal was we had to have people accompanying us and they would ask us not to film something [in North Korea]. For example, we wanted to film at a certain place and there happened to be a building under construction and it didn't look as fancy as the other buildings, so they wanted us to shoot where everything looked finished and made a good impression of the cityscape.

The universe is not harmonious: you know that by looking outside.

It happens sometimes that the material itself carries things you have not fully planned. The footage has its own right, its own life, its own vibrancy and energy in it.