When I am shooting a film I never think of how I want to shoot something; I simply shoot it.
A film that can be described in words is not really a film.
We know that behind every image revealed there is another image more faithful to reality, and in the back of that image there is another, and yet another behind the last one, and so on, up to the true image of that absolute, mysterious reality that no one will ever see.
A man who renounces something is also a man who believes in something.
I think people talk too much; that’s the truth of the matter. I do. I don’t believe in words. People use too many words and usually wrongly. I am sure that in the distant future people will talk much less and in a more essential way. If people talk a lot less, they will be happier. Don’t ask me why.
A scene has to have a rhythm of its own, a structure of its own.
When a scene is being shot, it is very difficult to know what one wants it to say, and even if one does know, there is always a difference between what one has in mind and the result on film.
Hollywood is like being nowhere and talking to nobody about nothing.
The photographer in Blow-Up, who is not a philosopher, wants to see things closer up. But it so happens that, by enlarging too far, the object itself decomposes and disappears. Hence there’s a moment in which we grasp reality, but then the moment passes. This was in part the meaning of Blow-Up.
Often to understand, we have to look into emptiness.
The greatest danger for those working in the cinema is the extraordinary possibility it offers for lying.