I wasn't from a political family. Nobody talked politics.

When you get older you do one film at a time.

A TV series is a long commitment.

How families interact is not some abstract concept of mother, son, father, daughter; it has to do with economic circumstances, the work they do, the time they can spend with each other.

Politics lives in people, ideas live in people, they live in the concrete struggles that people have.

Don't take advice. You have to make up your own mind what to do from the beginning.

If you think back to the great French directors it's difficult to think of British film-makers who are comparable.

I think cinema is taken a bit more seriously in France.

Oh, I don't like labels.

People who are deaf or hard of hearing need all the support we can give them.

Eric Cantona is a giggler.

It would be exciting to take part in what we now call the Enlightenment at the end of the 18th century, but with modern dentistry.

I try to avoid mirrors.

Anti-Semitism is a form of racism, and all forms of racism are horrible.

There's no great desire to own lots of stuff - and I don't. You can only live in one house and drive one car.

In the 1980s, I had a lot of films, documentaries for television, which were about why the trade unions had failed to organize resistance to Margaret Thatcher's plans. And they were banned. I had to fight for those films.

I think that cinema is medium of communication. It's as valid as novels or fine art.

The E.U. is an economically right-wing organization that prioritizes the interests of big corporations.

When you're at the wrong end of your 70s, everything is a challenge.

I think you find amongst ordinary people there are a lot of people that are really talented.

There's so much control, so many executive producers, so many people looking over their shoulder, so many people trying to second-guess the boss. The space for writers and directors and actors to be creative is zilch.

After 'The Gamekeeper' I made one other film called 'Looks and Smiles,' but making British films was very difficult. There wasn't a tradition of British cinema.

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'm not a great fan of very short films.