I’m not pessimistic about people in general, but only about the way they live.

First I went to the Sorbonne to do my licence en lettres, but I also started to study law.

I like making black and white films in natural surroundings, but I much prefer shooting a color film inside a studio where the colors are easier to control.

As far as I was concerned, either I was a homosexual or I wasn’t, so making films would change nothing.

I’m not pessimistic about people in general, but only about the way they live.

I wanted to make a film about stupid people that was very vulgar and deeply stupid. From that moment on I can hardly be reproached for making a film that is about stupid people.

Laying tracks gives you freedom without being too obvious.

I love mirrors. They let one pass through the surface of things.

There’s one thing which I hate about color films… people who use up a lot of their despairing producer’s money by working in the laboratory to bring out the dominant hues, or to make color films where there isn’t any color.

Some colors are very difficult to render, and you must compensate to get the color you want on the screen.

A woman is subject matter enough.

It’s often wrong to write for specific actors because one ends up using what is least interesting about them, their mannerisms and habits. I prefer not to write for specific people.

A woman confronting men is a proper subject, it is inexhaustible.

I’m not wild about hand-held shots.

My father wanted me to be a pharmacist like himself. He had been a doctor, but he no longer believed in medicine; so he became a pharmacist, but he believed in that hardly more.

I brought the film like a flower to the world.

I remember an article, I can’t recall who by, it was after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which said that now the Wall was down, there could be no more class war. Only someone with money could ever say such a thing.