I was seduced by the nouvelle vague, because it was really reinventing everything. And the Italian cinema that one would see in the theaters in the late '50s, early '60s was Italian comedy, Italian style, which, to me, was like the end of neo-realism. I think cinema all over the world was influenced by it, which was Italy finding its freedom at the end of fascism, the end of the Nazi invasion. It was a kind of incredible energy. Then, late '50s, early '60s, the neo-realism lost its great energy and became comedy.

I haven't made a movie for a while, but I've watched a lot. It's my major waste of time. I like to work, but also to be waiting for work.

Sometimes you are in sync with the times, sometimes you are in advance, sometimes you are late.

Having no children had been a kind of choice up to the moment when, from a choice, it became a sadness.

I was writing poems when I was young, you know, because my father was a poet, so it was absolutely normal to follow my father.

If you mention any ideological thing about shooting Last Tango in Paris, I was thinking I was doing a political film.

I remember being young in the 1960s. We had a great sense of the future, a great big hope. This is what is missing in the youth today. This being able to dream and to change the world.