At the moment it is much more unknown to me here than in the American west, which I know quite well now -- much better than Saxony, Mecklenburg or even Bavaria.

The West was the one place where I knew I needed to go. It's the one landscape where I could just, blindfolded, shoot.

I'm getting a little bored by the juxtaposition of American and other cinema. I no longer think this division is as true as it might have been in the 1980s, or the early part of the 90s.

Many French directors, having now realised there was no more real criticism, that the standards of the past have gone, are very offended about the quality of film criticism.

Of course the French are making very credible movies and it is still one of the greatest nations in terms of world cinema but the real problem is the decay in film criticism.

In this age of consumerism film criticism all over the world - in America first but also in Europe - has become something that caters for the movie industry instead of being a counterbalance.