Because if you lived, as I did, several years under Nazi totalitarianism, and then 20 years in communist totalitarianism, you would certainly realize how precious freedom is, and how easy it is to lose your freedom.

The worst evil is - and that's the product of censorship - is the self-censorship, because that twists spines, that destroys my character because I have to think something else and say something else, I have to always control myself.

When you make a film, you realize that the audience will be powerless to stop it or flip back to refresh their memories or skip the boring parts. They are at the mercy of your storytelling.

Individuals fighting or rebelling against the status quo, the establishment, is good for drama.

When I entered the film school at the Prague Academy in the '50s, it was the hardest time in the Communist countries. The ideological control of the society was almost absolute.