I feel that cinema is my country. But it's not my business.
Leos Carax
Cinema is a territory. It exists outside of movies. It's a place I live in. It's a way of seeing things, of experiencing life. But making films, that's supposed to be a profession.
We all get a little tired of being ourselves sometimes. The answer is to reinvent yourself, but how do you do that and what is the cost?
Video is freeing, but also lazier. You have to recreate the love of the moment.
I travel, I read, I write, I have other lives. But when I have a camera, I know that's my country, my island.
Every film starts with two or three images. Then I try to edit these images.
My films start with images, a few images and a few feelings, and I try to edit them together to see the correspondence between these images and these feelings.
Even a fiction film is hard to end. You can going on shooting and editing a documentary forever.
When I was 16, I felt very relieved to discover cinema. It was like an island where I could see life and death from another perspective. Every young person should be interested in that island. It's a beautiful place.
I'm not against the virtual world; it's fascinating, but I don't like the way they try to impose it on us. It's a thing imposed by rich countries.
The virtual world is not the enemy. The pioneers invented a world they believed in, but the followers must follow that world whether they believe in it or not.
I've always been interested in invisible worlds, and I like to visit digital worlds, you know, any world that's imposed on us.
When I made my first film, I had hardly ever seen a camera before, and I was a young man when I arrived in Paris from the suburbs. At the time, I didn't talk much. I was very shy, so the bluff served me. I was telling people that I had no money, and that I knew how to make films, but I had no proof.
I'm not a cineaste. I've made so few films. Sometimes it feels each one is the last one or the first one.
I care about cinema even though I haven't made many films.
I like tragedies, whether they're sci-fi or something else, but I can't say I know much about any genre in particular.
I don't work with people who ask me questions.
I changed my name when I was 13. I don't know why but it made sense at the time. I wanted another identity. I wanted to reinvent myself.
When I was 16, I discovered this island called cinema and I thought: 'Oh, how wonderful; I'm ready.'
I don't think men were meant to be interviewed.
I mostly don't submit to talking about my work because I would like another talk about real life.
Men talk about art, and artists make art, but should artists talk?
I'm not especially interested in actors or their life, double, triple identities and all that.
I'm not only my films, but I'm pretty much my films.
There's a real cowardice in the movie business. If you don't meet the right crazy people, you can't do it.
