Bernardo Bertolucci

“Sometimes I think that I understand my movies after I make them. Really. I go very often off of instinct.”

“I don't film messages. I let the post office take care of those.”

“I don't see my movies. When you ask me about one of my movies, it just goes in my memory because maybe sometimes I confuse one for another. I think all movies are like sequences, which is the body of my work.”

“English dialogue is the best in the world. So dry and direct. The Italian language is beautiful, but it is too literary.”

“If you mention any ideological thing about shooting 'Last Tango in Paris,' I was thinking I was doing a political film.”

“I lived in a kind of dream of communism.”

“I like to be in a huis clos, as the French say - in one place. It's something that in general can create a bit of claustrophobia. But for me, claustrophobia becomes almost immediately claustrophilia. I love it!”

“What happened in the late Fifties, early Sixties in French cinema was a fantastic revolution. I was in Italy, but completely in love with the nouvelle vague movement, and directors like Godard, Truffaut, Demy. 'The Dreamers' was a total homage to cinema and that love for it.”

“To explore technology for me is something that I have to do. Otherwise, I feel completely left in the back... abandoned.”

“You live day by day. You can't build your life.”

“I make movies in order to make things understood, not to be shocking.”

“My father basically had two ways of judging anything. Either something was poetic or it wasn't.”

“I think that I used to love Hollywood movies. I remember great phases and moments. But, unfortunately, now is not the moment.”

“There's no more film; now everything's digital. I welcome this. It's fantastic for me to have a new chance.”

“I like being able to see an innocence in people. I see a lot of beauty in youth. Young people are in progress. Their faces and bodies and minds are constantly changing. It's exciting to capture that on film.”

“I like that 3D is based on the fact that you look with two eyes, so two cameras imitate that.”

“What always made me proud - almost blushing with pride - is that Francis Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg all told me that 'The Conformist' is their first modern influence.”

“Sometimes you are in sync with the times, sometimes you are in advance, sometimes you are late.”

“I haven't made a movie for a while, but I've watched a lot. It's my major waste of time. I like to work, but also to be waiting for work.”

“I don't see my movies. I think it's healthier and safer to keep a bit of distance. I'm afraid to be disappointed.”