"I do think that our perception of reality is fragmentary, and in 20th-century literature, it's totally normal to not …"

"I know very well the sorts of pressures you're under in television. I don't work in television anymore myself, but I'…"

"Film is an artificial construct. It pretends to reconstruct reality. But it doesn't do that—it's a manipulative…"

"All of my films constitute a reaction against mainstream cinema. Every serious form of art sees the receiver as a par…"

"Today's conventional cinema, or mass cinema, doesn't take the receiver seriously as a partner. It sees the audience m…"

"My films are intended as polemical statements against the American 'barrel down' cinema and its dis-empowerment of th…"

"Pornography, it seems to me, is no different from war films or propaganda films in that it tries to make the visceral…"

"Film is 24 lies per second at the service of truth, or at the service of the attempt to find the truth."

"My favourite film-maker of the decade is Abbas Kiarostami. He achieves a simplicity that's so difficult to attain."

"Natürlich ist es notwendig, über Gewalt zu sprechen. Aber audiovisuelle Medien leben von Bewegung und Attraktion. Gew…"