[2013 interview] When I go to Paris my heart sinks. I feel people aren't happy. They understand that their country is not what it was; that the lives of their children are not going to be as good as theirs. China is just the opposite. We still have a vision of China as very rigid, with officials who are like puppets. It's just the opposite! Under the uniform they are living creatures, full of joy! The new China is like Spain after Franco. Or America in the 1970s. People know they are going to run the world

The crew of La guerre du feu (1981) was international, and things went fine. The way I feel, I feel very French, but also I feel very good about being in America. Probably it's because I feel so French that I don't feel anything wrong about being different but rather love the experience. I think you may hate America when you don't speak the language, you don't understand the people, and you feel bad about your own culture. But I feel extremely good about French culture and extremely good about American culture. I love being here. I love my American friends. So I said to myself, why not try an international approach without trying to push aside my own culture, my past, or anything about me?

As a filmmaker I am only interested in the close-up - where I can dive into a character and see the emotions - or opening the screen as wide as I can to show a spectacle.

As a commercial director, you learn to direct actors and place a camera. But you don't learn how to tell a story. You learn how to be superficial.

Enemy at the Gates (2001) is a film about duels and duality, about contrasts and extremes. The event is minuscule, but the propaganda makes it extremely important. Two individuals track each other in the midst of millions who are dying, but the focus is on these two. The smallest part is only one little piece of the large canvas, but it consequently becomes the central symbol of the whole.