I've always believed that true cinema is cinema of the imagination.

Whoever would like to look and see what someone is saying behind all the show, glitter, scenery, whatever it may be, and see what ideas are being expressed beyond and below and above that, can do that, as well.

America interests me above all because it is so filled with contradictions, interesting contradictions, which change constantly. Even if you've decided that you don't want to deal with that subject again, before you know it, the desire comes back to do it yet again.

It's very easy with the camera to show the positive side of something.

It is hard to do a film that wants to say something because, unfortunately, most everything has been said.

I think that men of my generation - not me in particular - are among the most fortunate men in the universe.

From Ennio [Morricone] I ask for themes that clothe my characters easily. He's never read a script of mine to compose the music, because many times he's composed the music before the script is ever written.