he has invented his own cinematic universe where out of chaos and detritus come moments of pure poetry and the deepest enlightenment.

When it comes to organising your set, it’s important to maintain close physical contact with your crew at all times. There are often a dozen people hanging around, talking on their phones, paying no attention. I insist that all non-essential conversations take place far from the camera and actors, which means no walkie-talkies within a hundred feet

I wanted to make films and needed a camera, so I had some kind of natural right to this tool. It was expropriation. If you are locked in a room and need air to breathe, take a chisel and hammer and break down the wall. When you have a good story to tell, by dint of destiny or God knows what, you gain the right to do such things. I helped this camer

What does it mean to transform a whole world into music? That’s what opera is about. The idea of staging an opera seemed a strange thing for me to do, until I realised that since my earliest days as a filmmaker I have sought to transform every action, every word into images, so I thought, “Why shouldn’t I try at least once in my life to do the same

What do you mean by “sublime”? Start with its Latin origin: sublimus, meaning uplifted, lofty or elevated. A door has a threshold down below and a raised lintel, the horizontal support overhead. It is elevated above us as we walk through the door. It is beyond us and outside us and larger than us, yet not wholly abstract or foreign.

At one point Kaspar spontaneously starts weeping after being given a baby to hold, then says, “Ich bin von allen abgetan” [“I am so far away from everything”]. In another scene, a professor of logic tests him by explaining there is one village inhabited by people who tell only the truth and a second where people tell only lies. A man is walking bet

Chickens in some forms – roasted, for example – are perfectly acceptable to me, but look into their eyes while they are alive and bear witness to genuine, bottomless stupidity. They are the most horrifying and nightmarish creatures in this world.

In Incident at Loch Ness you see my wife – who is from Siberia – and me sitting quietly. It’s a Russian custom. Before you go on a trip, after all the running around and packing, stop for a moment so you leave from a point of complete stillness. It makes for a safe and pleasant journey.

Using as little technical equipment as possible meant that Messner became the father of modern mountaineering. He’s a man of great survival skills, endowed not only with extraordinary technical proficiency, but also a sense of exactly what is happening around him and a knowledge of when something isn’t right. I learnt a lot from him about evaluatin