European Film Quotes

I went to Yugoslavia to make a movie. People saw me there and asked me to do a movie in Germany. And that led to a movie in Italy. Before I knew it, I was in Europe for most of the next 10 years.

I was always intrigued with European cinema, and hated most American cinema. I didn't like the one, two, three - boom! style, with a neat and tidy ending. That was never my scene.

There was a golden era in film-making in Hollywood back in the 1970s, and although there is some great independent film-making in America, it's actually very hard to get independent films made in the United States. It's much more feasible from Europe.

There are different cinema traditions in France, Spain and other European countries. There's a much stronger intellectual tradition: cinema is seen in a more serious way.

I'd like to do one European film a year.

Basically, I was a very serious film fan. I watched a lot of cinema and contemporary and European film.

I watched L'eclisse [1962] with Alain Delon and Monica Vitti. Changed my world. What a glamorous and modern film. This is what a genius is - the thing of a genius. The dresses, the tiny heels, the Cardin look, the boys dressed up as Italian gigolos - it was divine, very modern. [Michelangelo] Antonioni, I loved and I realized: how modern.

I made a French film called 'Merry Christmas' which is a very European film. It's a World War I piece.

I really want to do something in Europe. With a small movie, it can be an interesting challenge. But I have to get the right project. I don't think it's so important to go to Hollywood. All that trash that comes out of there! I don't want to do that.

As a European filmmaker, you can not make a genre film seriously. You can only make a parody.

In Europe, it is not so unusual for directors to move between opera, theatre, and film, and I have at least three girlfriends I can think of who have directed in all three genres.