Bernardo Bertolucci

“The problem in Hollywood is that they try to become the only kind of cinema in the world, okay? The imposition everywhere of a unique culture, which is Hollywood culture, and a unique way of life, which is the American way of life.”

“I saw 'Avatar' and liked it very much. It was a great achievement.”

“'Dreamers' was because I really wanted to go back after I heard so much nonsense about '68. I wanted to go back to what for me was '68, when young people thought that they could change the world.”

“I wanted to have a reaction from the audience. I wanted to be able to talk to somebody, and not be talking just to myself. That's when I did 'The Conformist,' 'Last Tango in Paris,' etc. And I found it was incredibly rewarding, something new.”

“I remember being young in the 1960s... we had a great sense of the future, a great big hope. This is what is missing in the youth today. This being able to dream and to change the world.”

“When I shoot, I try to feel the body and the face and the weight of the actor, because the character until that moment is only in the pages of the script. And very often, I pull from the life of my actors. I'm always curious about what these characters and these actors are hiding about their lives.”

“Although some people call me anti-feminist, I know I wasn't because Germaine Greer supported me.”

“English dialogues are always just what you need and nothing more - like something out of Hemingway. In Italian and in French, dialogues are always theatrical, literary. You can do more with it.”

“I am still against any kind of censorship. It's a subject in my life that has been very important.”

“After many, many years, I fell out of love with politics. It's not something I like but it's the truth.”

“I left the ending ambiguous, because that is the way life is.”

“I don't think you can in any way export culture with guns or tanks.”

“The conformist understands that the reason of his desperate look for conformism is that he realises he is different and that he never accepted his difference.”

“New York has always embraced me.”

“A monoculture is not only Hollywood, but Americans trying to export democracy.”

“If I don't fall in love with my characters, I cannot shoot.”

“I think politics is a higher build in life. You know? If you diffuse under normal, common sense of a story, you make it political. If you choose a conventional way for a story, or refuse to use the conventional way, you make it political.”

“I started in '69 to have psychoanalysis, and I realised very soon that I was changing, and that's I think why my movies were changing. They became much more open to dialogue.”

“I accept all interpretations of my films. The only reality is before the camera. Each film I make is kind of a return to poetry for me, or at least an attempt to create a poem.”

“For American filmmakers, the Oscars is like a mystic thing. For me, it was being in a mirror of my dreams when I was dreaming of Hollywood when I was an adolescent.”