I was really interested in geishas' work, and wanted to meet real geishas.
The movie [Chicken with Plums] is very delicate, and you need to have people around you that understand what you're doing, otherwise it doesn't work.
We with [ Marjane Satrapi] always work together on the script which is very important. We even film each other and we start to imagine things so that we are ready, because when you start shooting, it's pretty stressful.
There are different kinds of passages in the movie [Chicken with plums]. One of the passages is like a sitcom and another is a bit more delicate and another is more bizarre, so you have to have people who know how to navigate that.
I love Apocalypse Now because it's a war movie, but yet it's not really a movie about war.
I love Taxi Driver. When I saw it the first time, I didn't understand it, but I loved it because I thought the guy was really cool when he's talking to himself in the mirror.
For me, it was a wonderful surprise because I saw wonderful actors being very professional working in front of me [on Chicken with Plums]. I finally understood what an actor is and what an actor does. On a daily basis, it's a bit repetitive.
If you go back through 2000 years, I guess luck, Marx, and God have made history, the three of them together.
After 'Bhaji On The Beach', I didn't make a movie for six years. I couldn't get a movie off the ground for love nor money. It was a very tough time and I almost gave up. If I had been an Oxbridge bloke after 'Bhaji', my career would have been very different
This is one of the stout-hearted old warriors: he is angry with civilization because he supposes that its aim is to make all goodthings--honors, treasures, beautiful women--accessible even to cowards.
Some people find it difficult to argue with a woman Prime Minister and shrivel up.