Some encounters were decisive for the director. Artistic affinities and personal or professional bonds tie him to painters such as Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth and of course Cézanne; to photographers such as Peter Lindbergh, James Nachtwey and Barbara Klemm; to film-makers such as Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni, Anthony Mann, Douglas Sirk, Samuel Fuller, Manoel de Oliveira and Yasujiro Ozu; and to figures such as Pina Bausch and the Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto. The texts were written for particular occasions: a preface, a catalogue contribution, an anniversary article or a laudatio. Through fifteen "artists’ gazes" he shows us their perspective, their way of working, their artistic position, questioning the creative process behind every work. Pictures accompany the more descriptive pages, tied to looking at a painting or a photograph, to explanations of film technique, or to more intimate atmospheres of testimony and anecdote. Why did Anthony Mann’s westerns make "the language of cinema understandable" to the young film-maker? Who must a photographer devoted to bearing witness, like James Nachtwey, be? What is the "particular gaze" of Pina Bausch?