Great Throughts Treasury

"When I am shooting a film I never think of how I want to shoot something; I simply shoot it. My technique, which differs from film to film, is wholly instinctive and never based on a priori considerations."

"When we find ourselves up against practical obstacles that can't be overcome, we must go forward. You either make the film as you can or don't make it at all."

"When we say a character in my films doesn't function, we mean he doesn't function as a person, but he does function as a character ? that is, until you take him as a symbol. At that point it is you who are not functioning. Why not simply accept him as a character, without judging him? Accept him for what he is. Accept him as a character in a story, without claiming that he derives or acquires meaning from that story. There may be meanings, but they are different for all of us."

"You know what I would like to do: make a film with actors standing in empty space so that the spectator would have to imagine the background of the characters."

"You mustn't ask me to explain everything I do. I can't. That's that. How can I say why at a certain moment I needed this. How can I explain why I needed a confusion of colors?"

"You must be painter who takes a canvas and does what he likes with it. We are more like painters in past centuries who were ordered to paint frescoes to specific measurements. Among the people in the fresco may be a bishop, the prince's wife, etc. The fresco isn't bad simply because the painter used for models people from the court of the prince who ordered and paid for it."