It's a great lesson in modesty that you realize you're illiterate in a field that you think you're an expert in.

If anything, I see myself as a witness. I'd also be pleased, if you'd call me an interpreter. I try to hear and see the message of a place and pass it on, into that other language, the universal one of images.

The most political decision you make is where you direct people's eyes. In other words, what you show people, day in and day out, is political...And the most politically indoctrinating thing you can do to a human being is to show him, every day, that there can be no change.

In this age of consumerism film criticism all over the world - in America first but also in Europe - has become something that caters for the movie industry instead of being a counterbalance.

The beautiful image today means nothing. It's worthshit. In fact, it's almost as if it has the opposite effect, becauseyou're just like everything else out there.

Entertainment today constantly emphasises the message that things are wonderful the way they are. But there is another kind of cinema, which says that change is possible and necessary and it's up to you.

I'm getting a little bored by the juxtaposition of American and other cinema. I no longer think this division is as true as it might have been in the 1980s, or the early part of the 90s.