Your film is like your children. You might want a child with certain qualities, but you are never going to get the exact specification right. The film has a privilege to live its own life and develop its own character. To suppress this is dangerous. It is an approach that works the other way too: sometimes the footage has amazing qualities that you did not expect.

When you look at my film you see footage that is unbelievably awesome and beautiful and dangerous looking. It's something that is very, very cinematic.

I don't spend sleepless nights over getting very bad reviews.

North Korea has a very striking mythology there. It is influencing the whole nation.

We have to articulate ourselves. Otherwise we would be cows in the field.

My crew [on "Fitzcarraldo" filming] actually said, "We have filmed it from outside on the rocks of the shore. We should be on board [the ship]," and I said it's dangerous, I only do it if you cinematographer Thomas Mauch and you actor [Klaus] Kinski decide on your own.

I'm quite convinced that cooking is the only alternative to film making. Maybe there's also another alternative, that's walking on foot.