Biography

Recurring motifs in his films are memory and unconventional concepts of time.

For his 12th birthday, he was given an 8mm camera and began to make home movies, with his friends in starring roles. He thought that his interest in flashbacks, and what he would dub "flashforwards", may have been inspired by his childhood love of Milton Caniff's long-running action cartoon "Terry and the Pirates.".

He's responsible for launching the film careers of Emmanuelle Riva and Delphine Seyrig, both of whom he discovered on the stage.

Friend of director Chris Marker.

At 17, he moved to Paris and studied acting, before entering the French military during WWII.

My dream would be to make a movie with Stephen Sondheim. I'm proud that I got him to do the music for 'Stavisky'.

[on film-watching] I turn the lights low and take no calls. I like Bob Hope; I find him mysterious.

I am never driven. Every film I have made has been an assignment.

I never had any special appetite for filmmaking, but you have to make a living and it is miraculous to earn a living working in film.

The present and the past coexist, but the past shouldn't be in flashback.