I think Woody Allen is Woody Allen, and no matter where he goes he still makes his Woody Allen films.
Film is very much a universal and common voice, and we can't limit it to one particular culture.
Usually when I write a script, I have in mind some real people that I'm writing about, who don't always act in the film afterward.
A good movie is made by an initial burst of energy, the way that, when you are in school, your class exercises are always better than your final projects.
My way of expression is full of complications and mystery because that's my perception of life.
The calling of art is to extract us from our daily reality, to bring us to a hidden truth that's difficult to access - to a level that's not material but spiritual.
From my very first movie, what was my concentration, my inspiration, was I didn't want to narrate something, I didn't want to tell a story. I wanted to show something, I wanted for them to make their own story from what they were seeing.
I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind.
I think violence can never be justified.
Whenever people ask me what the story is for my next film, I won't tell and people feel it's because I'm being secretive or something, but it's actually because I'm ashamed to sum up a film in three sentences.
There is violence in real life but I would never impose violence in a film just to attract the audience.
All the different nations in the world, despite their differences of appearance and religion and language and way of life, still have one thing in common, and that is what's inside of all of us. If we X-rayed the insides of different human beings, we wouldn't be able to tell from those X-rays what the person's language or background or race is.
Poetry always runs away from you - it's very difficult to grasp it, and every time you read it, depending on your conditions, you will have a different grasp of it. Whereas with a novel, once you have read it, you have grasped it.
I would be too selfish if I said everyone should see my movies more than once. To say that would mean I'm just marketing my work!
There are at least two retrospectives of my work each year in some country.
I think I really produce my best work in Iran.
I never reflect or convey that which I have not experienced myself.
Everybody knows that I am not usually patient enough to actually sit down and watch one of my own films from the beginning to the end - I never do.
I am a citizen of the world.
I never really learned photography.
