I'm terrified by young people who are doing what they think is film making. What they're really doing is taking that convulsed, fast rhythm of commercials. It's not film making.

I really do believe that the Jesuit system is better for a country.

All the people I've met, many outside of cinema, knew everything perfectly about one thing or one subject or one area.

When I was young, I believed in three things: Marxism, the redemptive power of cinema, and dynamite. Now I just believe in dynamite.

The function of the flashback is Freudian...You have to let them wander like the imagination or like a dream.

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.

There are directors, and there are authors. I think I am more of an author than a director.