I think most films are too predictable. They follow familiar patterns. I suppose audiences like to know where they stand but I like films that take me by surprise, take unexpected turns and twists.

I only storyboard scenes that require special effects, where it is necessary to communicate through pictures.

You can't get an actor to do something that is beyond his range, so you have to be aware of the range of the actor and, if necessary, alter the part to suit the actor.

All the great legends are Templates for human behavior. I would define a myth as a story that has survived.

The more extreme and the more expressed that passion is, the more unbearable does life seem without it. It reminds us that if passion dies or is denied, we are partly dead.

Black and white is much closer to the condition of dreaming. It links you to the subconscious and I think that was part of the great appeal of movies originally.. this strange otherness.

I was in Japan, and my assistant director had worked with Kurosawa. I used quite of number of Kurosawa's crew.

Movie-making is the process of turning money into light. All they have at the end of the day is images flickering on a wall.

It's so easy to manipulate an audience, but it's nearly always clear that you are being manipulated. I think even people that are not critically attuned are aware of cynical manipulation in film.

What is passion? Passion is surely the becoming of a person.

Black-and-white gives you that sort of parallel world. Also, it's very close to the condition of dreaming, to the unconscious.

Rational conduct on the basis of the idea of calling, was born... from the spirit of Christian asceticism.

Whether you try too hard to fit in or you try too hard to stand out, it is of equal consequence: you exhaust your significance.

The first problem of communication is getting people's attention.

Once upon a time, I thought that politics was the name we gave to our higher instincts. That was before Margaret Thatcher, who came to power when I was 11 years old.

You now have permission to be strong and healthy and calm and relaxed. There's no place else to go. There's nothing else to do.

The closest you can get to perfection is constant improvement.

Human life [is] ... a process of filling in time until the arrival of death, or Santa Claus, with very little choice, if any, of what kind of business one is going to transact during the long wait.

There are a million little things, but one of the best ways to get to know characters is to just put them in situations and see what they say.

A happy life is a life for others.

Old men do it better. We're not so sensitive in certain areas.