CANNES, France - Woody Allen said Thursday that filmmaking was better than any psychiatrist's couch.
"You know, my whole life I'm constantly fighting all kinds of depressions and terror and anxiety and I find that like a mental patient in an institution, if they keep the patient busy with finger-painting and basket-weaving, then they're more relaxed," said Allen, who was presenting his London-based drama "Match Point" in Cannes.
"And so if I'm constantly doing something -- if I'm writing and acting and directing and editing and adding music and then doing it again, it's therapeutic for me."
Allen said that the three dozen films he had made since the 1960s were labors of love and an escape, adding that he would keep going as long as he felt inspired.
"It's not habitual and it's not for the money -- I do it for myself. And if people come and see the movie at the end and like it, I'm delighted -- it's a great thing," he said.
"If they don't, I still have the benefit of living in an unreal world for a year. I'm able to create a world of fictional characters and beautiful women and charming men and costumes and periods and great locations and amusing dialogue and interesting situations to immerse myself in and keep myself from having to live in the real world for a year.
"And then when that's over, I have to return to real life and that's always full of terrible problems so I create a new film and bury myself in it for that period of time."
05/12/2005 13:58 GMT