History Has Been The History Of Warfare.

In The Order I Was In, Each Brother Takes Five Vows, One Of Which Is Teaching The Poor Gratuitously. As A Young Person I Was Seized By This Idea Of Social Justice And I Wanted Very Much To Follow My Vow Of Teaching The Poor Gratuitously.

The Normal Cut In A Theatrical Film Is Anywhere From 3 To 6 Seconds. That Means Thousands Of Images In A Film Over A Couple Of Hours. In Visitors The Cuts Come Every 70-plus Seconds. The Point Of View Is That The Stiller One Can Be The More Open To Their Senses They Become. The Whole World Is Quick Right Now. If Things Can Be Slowed Down They Stay In Memory Longer.

So, Not For Lack Of Love Of Language, But Because I Feel Our Language Is In An Enormous State Of Humiliation, I Decided To Make Films Without Words.

It Is Very Easy To Make Clear What You Want A Film To Say, But I Did Not Wish To Engage In Overt Propaganda, Even For The Right Cause. I Wanted To Create An Experience Through The Films, Something Where People Could Have The Freedom Of Their Own Response To Them.

The Language Of The Moment Or, As It Were, The Language Of The Order In Which We Live, Is The Image. I Felt That If I Wanted To Commune With The Public, I Should Best Do So Through The Language Of Image. It's A Conscious Embrace Of A Contradiction.