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.

The Yanks have colonized our subconscious.

But I think that the spirit of protectionism would be the grave of European cinema. You cannot protect something by building a fence around it and thinking that this will help it survive.

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.

The reason I never wrote a novel is that I don't have what it takes to write characters, so they would all be talking differently. I lack that ability. If I were writing, they would all talk like me, and that's no good.

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.

Without dreams, there can be no courage. And without courage, there can be no action.