Michel Hazanavicius

“Actually, I met a lot of directors and most of them have that fantasy to make a silent movie because for directors it's the purest way to tell a story. It's about creating images that tell a story and you don't need dialogue for that.”

“It's just incredible. When you're French, coming from a non-English language country, you don't even dream about Oscar recognition or nominations. It's just beyond the dream. It's something very, very special and unique. It's the highest recognition any filmmaker could dream of.”

“I watched a lot of silent directors who were absolutely great like John Ford and Fritz Lang, Tod Browning, and also some very modern directors like The Coen Brothers. The directors take the freedom within their own movies to be melodramatic or funny when they chose to be. They do whatever they want and they don't care about the genre.”

“Anne Wiazemsky wrote two books about her life with Jean-Luc Godard between 1966 and 1969. And I first read the second one, which is about the fall of their love story and their marriage. I immediately thought there was a movie to make with this book because it was so funny, and I thought the love story was very, very touching.”

“I can't force people to agree with me.”

“Sometimes when an actor says something almost perfect, but you know you have to edit it, if you tell them to change something immediately, it will come out great.”

“When we were making the movie, winning awards for it wasn't the point at all. We didn't even have an American distributor.”

“To work with kids is difficult. To work with non-actors is difficult.”

“I think all the history of the Jewish people is about adaptation.”

“You - as a director, you have to do your job, you have to show things, and you don't have to ask the actors to do it, or the dialogue.”

“I only have one obsession - not to be boring.”

“'Avatar' is a great movie. I really love it.”

“It's a dream for a director, at least to try a studio movie.”

“Some people probably think me telling Godard's story is blasphemy. My friends were worried. But he's not my hero or my god. Godard is like the leader of a sect, and I'm an agnostic.”

“When you look at the early-'30s movies, like King Kong, the codes of acting are very similar to those of silent movies. In some of the silent movies - the good ones, the ones done by the best directors - the acting is very, very natural.”

“I've always been against the idea of dividing films between festival titles and popular movies. I think you can make films that are both.”

“I love silent cinema but don't hold it sacred. Like any branch of film there are some very boring films alongside the masterpieces.”

“Godard never sought to be sympathetic.”

“But I don't think of myself as a foreigner or a Frenchman! I just think of myself as a director. Whether I'm French or Australian or whatever, it's really not important.”

“The fact that I made a special movie with an old-fashioned style - even if it's a mix between with modern and old-fashioned things - must mean I feel both ways about change. In a way I'm resisting, but in a way adapting myself to the times.”