Also Sprach Fritz -- Expressionisme

In what way were you influenced by or have you worked against the Expressionism current?

I was very influenced by it. One cannot live through a period without taking some of it in.

Die Nibelungen seems expressionist in the sense of the term, whereas Caligari seems expressionist in the very worst sense.

You are wrong. Because Caligari is an interesting attempt, it was the first attempt. When Wiene tried again with Genuine, that didn't work. The cinema is a living art. It is necessary to take all that is new, not without examination, but all that is good for you, all that enriches you.

What seems to you to be good in the Expressionist movement, what did you use in your films?

That is a very difficult to tell you; that which I take is my emotion. I try to create something. In this type of interview, one asks me to explain what I would like to have done. One day, in America, some admirers showed me what I thought when I made M. I said to them, "That's very interesting, but that's the very first time I realized it." I can't really answer you, these are emotions. When young directors come to ask me, "Could you givbe us the rules of directing," I tell them "There are no rules." Today I see that something is good, I should go in that direction, tomorrow I say it isn't right, I should take a different direction. I used the train and now I use a plane, nut it is impossible to pretend that the train is bad. I can't say what I found in Expressionism. I used it, I tried to absorb it.