'It has taken me thirty years to come to simplicity.'

It has taken me thirty years to come to simplicity. Earlier, I made a lot of what I thought were beautiful shots with much backlighting and many effects, absolutely none of which were motivated by anything in the film at all. As soon as we had a painting on the wall, we thought it should have a glow around it. It was terrible and I can hardly stand to see my own films on television anymore. I look for two minutes and then I thank God that there is a word called simplicity.

—Sven Nykvist, quoted in "Shooting With Ingmar Bergman: A Conversation with Sven Nykvist" (AFI 1984)