To be a film-maker, you are almost forced to be surrounded by contradictions... You must have talents of so many different kinds - talents that are contradictory.

I am less instinctive as I try to be more professional - about the music, about the sound.

I may find myself changing my notions about what I want to do right in the middle of a film. And on days when I'm feeling merry, I shoot merry scenes, and on gloomy days, I shoot gloomy ones.

I want my audience to be constantly captivated, bewitched, so that it leaves the theatre dazed, stunned to be back on the pavement.

If I have some free time, I leave Paris with some books about the cinema. If I'm not filming, I'm watching films.

I had thought of writing, actually, and that later on I’d be a novelist.

I’d skip school regularly to see movies – even in the morning, in the small Parisian theaters that opened early.

At first, I wasn’t sure whether I’d be a critic or a filmmaker, but I knew it would be something like that.

An actor is never so great as when he reminds you of an animal – falling like a cat, lying like a dog, moving like a fox.

Some day I’ll make a film that critics will like. When I have money to waste.