“The camera is much more than a recording apparatus, it is a medium via which messages reach us from another world.”

Don’t give them what you think they want. Give them what they never thought was possible.

I passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.

I don’t pray really, because I don’t want to bore God.

The director is simply the audience. His job is to preside over accidents.

In my opinion, there are two things that can absolutely not be carried to the screen: the realistic presentation of the sexual act and praying to God.

Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.

Our songs will all be silenced, but what of it? Go on singing.

If there hadn’t been women we’d still be squatting in a cave eating raw meat, because we made civilization in order to impress our girlfriends.

A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army.

Personally, I don’t like a girlfriend to have a husband. If she’ll fool her husband, I figure she’ll fool me.

I’ve never understood the cult of Hitchcock. Particularly the late American movies. Egotism and laziness. And they’re all lit like television shows.

I look back on my life and it’s 95% running around trying to raise money to make movies and 5% actually making them. It’s no way to live.

A bad word from a colleague can darken a whole day. We need encouragement a lot more than we admit, even to ourselves.

A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.

I have an unfortunate personality.

They teach anything in universities today. You can major in mud pies.

There is a bit of acting involved when you get in front of a camera for a video. Even when you perform onstage, you’re putting on a show.

A camera alone does not make a picture. To make a picture you need a camera, a photographer and above all a subject. It is the subject that determines the interest of the photograph.

I am not going to be dictated to by the size of the camera. I use everything from an 8 x 10 to a 35-mm. But I don’t use these modern cameras which break down all the time !

We’ve spent now about 150 years trying to convince ourselves that photographs are reliable evidence, some unimpeachable slice of the real world. That was a myth from the very beginning.

And I don’t like having my picture taken. I’m almost like an old African in that sense. I think it steals a bit of the soul.

When I got cast in ‘Rocky IV,’ I had never seen a film camera before. And here I was in this boxing movie.

All the films are hits before you turn the camera on. It’s only in the execution that they fail. I’ve been less than happy with the way a couple of films were edited, but it’s a director’s prerogative and you gotta go with it.

I treat the camera like a person – I gaze into it. Photos are a flat thing, and you need to put life into them.