I don't enter into particulars with [Ennio Morricone]. I give him the feeling and the suggestions of the characters.

When I used a woman in my films or wrote a woman into my film, I wanted her to be a central point and a motivating point or a catalyst to function in the film.

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

Charlie Chaplin, too, through spectacle, contraband certain ideas, put them through, ideas that even today are not being expressed by great statesmen and politicians.

As Claude LeLouche said, his favorite American director is Sergio Leone. Not because I would be American, but because I was dealing with subject matter that an American could have just as easily dealt with.

I must be honest and say that I was under the fascination of films. I was fascinated by all films, even the words of them. If I was to do a more-precise analysis of the situation, I have to admit that I was more entertained by the bad films than the good ones. Because when something is beautiful, it is there; it is finished; it is done. It doesn't have to be touched or be worked upon.

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.