If there is an auteur who influenced me - and there is only one - that is Charlie Chaplin. And he never won an Oscar.
Sergio LeoneI consciously chose a person like the bounty killer [of the Fistful trilogy] because he was the street sweeper of the desert, a man who put his life at risk exclusively for the money. I'm not saying that he went against the law, but he put himself within the wings of the law only when it was something that he could profit by.
Sergio LeoneBecause the life that I live - the life that we all live - is filtered through [one's own] experience. It isn't necessarily optimistic when you look at the political phenomena, the different things that are going on in the world.
Sergio LeoneThe world is in America. In Italy is only Italy. France is full of France. Germany is full of Germany. In a continent that contains the entire world, contradictions are, of course, constantly arising.
Sergio LeoneI've seen films that have made as much as $100, $200 million, but they're not films. They're images. They're flashes. They're many beautiful images, lots of things to look at. They capture you. But it's not a film. It's not something that involves you in a story. They go to cinema now to be blown away by the effects.
Sergio Leone