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I don't believe in the deplorable notion of realism in the cinema: you can over-reach it, and it becomes as false as convention.

I've kind of come to the conclusion that what passes for realism in movies has nothing to do with reality and that my stuff is more realistic than that.

I believe realism is nothing but an analysis of reality. Film scripts have a synthetical constitution.

One of the things I strive for is realism. I need to be as real as possible in the dilemmas my characters face.

Realism is always subjective in film. There's no such thing as cinema verite.

Filmmaking for me is always aiming for the imaginary movie and never achieving it.

I actuall have to defend realism in theatre because I think TV does it badly - so corrupted by layers of bureaucrats who want to leave examination or psychology.

I try to get closer to reality, to get close to the contradictions. The cinema world can be a real world rather than a dream world.

I don't want at the end of my life to look back at just a bunch of fictional movies I was involved in that kept taking me away from the real world.

If you can't believe a little in what you see on the screen, it's not worth wasting your time on cinema.