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?

In fact, it is amazing how much European films - Italian, French, German and English - have recovered a certain territory of the audience in their countries over the last few years.

Film is a very, very powerful medium. It can either confirm the idea that things are wonderful the way they are, or it can reinforce the conception that things can be changed.

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.

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 more opinions you have, the less you see.

The culture of independent film criticism has totally gone down the drain and this seems to come with the territory of the consumer age that we are now living in.