To evoke the classic period of Italian cinema in a little film seemed like a great, fun thing to do. I had relations to that period. I had known Fellini and I had known Antonioni. I had made a movie with Antonioni and I had visited Fellini in his studios. So, it seemed like something worthwhile doing. You bring yourself to that mythical cinema.

In the late 1980s the amount of German films was down to four or five percent of the market, and the remaining 95 percent were American. It is now 20 to 30 percent German productions.

Many of the critics today get airline tickets, hotel accommodation, bags, beautiful photographs, gifts and other expenses paid by the distributors, and then are supposed to write serious articles about the movie.

The last adventure left on this planet is creativity because we've been everywhere. There's not much left to explore. But there's a lot of exploration left in the human imagination.

I think sometimes you have to just imagine something that looks pretty impossible. By imagining something that is impossible, automatically you wish you could make it possible.

An image that is unseen can't sell anything. It is pure, therefore true, beautiful, in one word: innocent. As long as no eye contaminates it, it is in perfect unison with the world. If it is not seen, the image and the object it represents belong together.

Filmmakers tell actors to adjust their body language, and the famous presence of the actor is his or her body language. That is what makes them special and a movie star. An actor's capital is his body.