Whoever came up first with that saying a picture is worth a thousand words didn't understand the first thing about either one.

Take opera for example - to go to the opera you have to dress up in a tuxedo and pay lots of money.

Images are no longer what they used to be. They can't be trusted any more. We all know that. You know that. When we grew up, images were telling stories and showing them. Now they're all into selling. They've changed under our very eyes. They don't even know how to do it anymore. They've plain forgotten. Images are selling out the world. And at a big discount.

The most important question for me when I begin working on a film is where to start. For a book, what makes you convinced there is a story that is worthwhile?

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.

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.

Whoever came up first with that saying a picture is worth a thousand words didn't understand the first thing about either one.