'Pride' is my first film with a happy ending. Before, I naively thought they were a cop-out, but now I've come to believe that happy endings and wish fulfilment are an incredibly important part of our cultural life.
I've worked with Lars von Trier on many films, and there's always a female character that's like an open wound - everything just pours out of this person.
'Kanche' is not primarily a war film: it is a lovely story set against a war backdrop.
A film should always at least be about something.
The werewolf film is a strange thing.
Every movie is a love story.
My initial thoughts about what a title can do was to set mood and the prime underlying core of the film's story, to express the story in some metaphorical way.
One of the things that got me thinking during therapy is that they say that fear is only thoughts, and nothing will happen because thoughts will never be real. And my thesis, or joke, in film Antichrist, is that they really do become real.
I think that a lot of exciting elements are finding a place where a film is happily, truly about something.
My access point to the '70s is films from that time, and they all have that paranoiac quality.
Obviously, the 'Rocky' theme is one of the most recognizable themes in film.
Of course there are many films about the period of Fascism itself but I don't know of any about that period beforehand. But it wasn't that specific fact that they weren't there that got me to think about this in the first place. It's not what led to the basic idea for the film, although it became apparent when I began to think about it.
I also used these realistic sounds in a psychological way. With The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, I used animal sounds - as you say, the coyote sound - so the sound of the animal became the main theme of the movie.
You see all these movies of white men saving the world all the time.
Story is important but the most important is the theme and how you're going to convey theme cinematically. I'm a believer also.
