When I was growing up in the mid-'50s, the Roaring Twenties were a huge part of the culture. There were a number of films and a bunch of television shows that dealt with the mythology of the underworld from that period.

I grew up within Italian-American neighborhoods, everybody was coming into the house all the time, kids running around, that sort of stuff, so when I finally got into my own area, so to speak, to make films, I still carried on.

Rock & roll seemed to just come to us, on the radio and in the record stores. It became our music. . . But then we uncovered another, deeper level, the history behind rock and R&B, the music behind our music. All roads led to the source, which was the blues.

I love movies - it's my whole life, and that's it.

Zombies, what are you going to do with them? Just keep chopping them up, shooting at them, shooting at them.

Film in the 20th century, it's the American art form, like jazz.

I've been thrown out of schools and fired from jobs. I don't want to work. I can honestly say I haven't done an honest day's work in my life.