My life, my reading, everything about me revolves around the cinema. So for me, cinema is life, and vice-versa.

You see in Once Upon a Time in the West the whole film moves around her [Claudia Cardinale]. If you take her out, there's no more film. She's the central motor of the entire happening.

It [film-making] really just has to do with my own ghosts and phantoms. And I have to say, in the end, it's just my way of seeing things.

It is clear that the vehicle of the western was a very interesting vehicle for me to contraband some of my ideas.

In my childhood, America was like a religion. Then, real-life Americans abruptly entered my life - in jeeps - and upset all my dreams.

I've always had the sensation that people in America are always avant-garde. Very attentive to all the new innovations. But it's very specialized.

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