It isn't easy to understand the lives of people different from your own.

Life should be taken ironically; otherwise, it becomes a tragedy.

It's only human and natural that an actor should see the film in terms of his own part, but I, as a director, have to see the film as a whole. He must therefore collaborate selflessly, totally.

Till now I have never shot a scene without taking account of what stands behind the actors because the relationship between people and their surroundings is of prime importance.

A particular type of film emerged from World War Two, with the Italian neorealist school. It was perfectly right for its time, which was as exceptional as the reality around us. Our major interest focused on that and on how we could relate to it. Later, when the situation normalized and post-war life returned to what it had been in peacetime, it became important to see the intimate, interior consequences of all that had happened.

Sometimes actors' mistakes give me ideas I can use, because mistakes are always sincere, absolutely sincere.

When you work on a character, you form in your mind an image of what he ought to look like. Then you go and find one who resembles him.