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

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.

For years all I seemed to be doing was lobbying politicians and others to persuade them that European culture needed movies, and that we had to protect it.

Butte was once a grand city. To me, that city is like one big stage for Edward Hopper. You could put your camera anywhere, and you felt you were looking at his paintings.

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.