- The great advantage of first films is that you're nobody and have no history, you've the freedom to risk everything.
- [on how he defines atheism] As a rejection of the metaphysical dimension. I deal only with the present and with man. For me, what counts above all are relationships with people, feelings.
- I always say that my cinema is not either avant-garde or New Wave as it happened during the '60s or the '70s, where many intended to imitate, for instance, Godard. I followed my pathway. And my path involved a story that directly communicated. I've always been faithful to my style, and I always try to tell things in a form that involves the audience.
- [on Fists in the Pocket (1965)] I had a sort of progressive pathway that I had to cover in order to free myself from that movie. I often say that ironically, maybe after my death, maybe people will remember me - just for that single movie.
- When I was 18 or 19, I was a painter, and I was not sure about what would I be in the future. That is the approach I adopted when making movies, in the sense that images are fundamental. I privileged images and liked working on images like painters did. I often criticized the Italian cinema tradition for using too many words.
- All of us live based on our own personal history, on our own life experiences, which then pop up and re-emerge in the images that we see.
- [press conference for Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara (2023) at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival] I read the book, it was by a very conservative Catholic writer, called Messori [Vittorio Messori] who defended the choices of the Pope. With the various testimonies and autobiographies of Edgardo Mortara, I read about this and he says things in a very frank, open way. He talks about his mother, who was a bit like you see in the film. And the other very mysterious episode is the one when he's a teenager, he's so enthusiastic that he rushes and hits the Pope who falls down. This is a historic event which shows that Edgardo Mortara hadn't totally surrendered; in his subconscious there was something which told him to save his life with his family, and therefore be against the Pope. At the end, at the Pope's funeral, he doesn't care - he talks about what a pig he is, and then he corrects his stance.
- [Cannes press conference for Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara (2023)] I read the book that I mentioned earlier on and I fell in love with this story. It's the question of an inspiration that hits you, like at school. There was the question of working out the images. With Susanna Nicchiarelli there was the script which played a very important part - we had all the material to make a film. I didn't make a film against the Pope or to condemn the Catholic Church. In the story the Pope is the bad guy but that's not what I really wanted to show or depict. There's the basic principle which I might refer to - intolerance - it's as though religion became intolerant. There are certain principles, certain dogmas which have at all costs to be respected otherwise that spells the end of religion itself, and that doesn't justify the position adopted by the Pope in this story. He adopts a very extreme position vis-à-vis Edgardo.
- [Cannes press conference for Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara (2023)] When I read the book about this story, I was deeply touched. I really wanted to be part of this story. I'm a Catholic - I'm not a practising Catholic - but I've never been kidnapped, I've never been abducted and this story deeply moved me. And then I discovered that the very great Steven Spielberg was preparing a film on Edgardo Mortara as well, but based on another book. He'd already started preparing this film and contacted various colleagues; he did some location-scouting in Italy and several actors had already been contacted. However, Spielberg's project then came to a halt because he didn't find the right child. I think that's only half the story; the film cannot be made in a language other than Italian and furthermore with regional Italian accents. You needed people speaking Hebrew. An American actor who speaks English is far removed from all that. It would have been a totally different film had it been shot in English.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content