I think politics should be expressed in this way and not in other ways. And not just politics - sentiments, even certain states of being.

It's very difficult to be original.

I'm not saying that the Americans had the same impact as the Jesuits, but I do see them as a very specialized populace, even in terms of being, to a degree, naïve. Because naiveté comes from lack of information.

Probably the greatest writer of westerns himself was Homer. His character were never all good or all bad. They're half and half, these characters, as all human beings are.

The American public is a very specialized public. The reason it is taken as a realistic film is because inside the fable, I've put that kind of reality in. And it could easily be called, instead of Once Upon a Time in America, Once Upon a Time There Was a Certain Kind of Cinema. Because it was also an homage to cinema.

I think women have always been considered objects, especially in the genre of westerns.

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