Sergio Leone Quotes
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I think that my films are westerns only in their exterior aspects. Within them are some of my truths, which happily, I see, belong to lots of parts of the world. Not just America.
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An important Italian critic once gave Fistful of Dollars a very bad review when it came out. Then he went to the university here Rome with Once Upon a Time in America. We showed it to 10,000 students. And while the man was speaking that day to the students, with me present, he said, "I have to state one thing. When I gave that review about Sergio's films, I should have taken into account that on Sergio Leone's passport, there should not be written whether the nationality is Italian or anything else. What should be written is: 'Nationality: Cinema.' "
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Sometimes, I even recite the role to the actor if it's not clear. And I beg them not to imitate me, because I'm not a good actor.
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It's very difficult to be original.
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I consciously chose a person like the bounty killer of the Fistful trilogy because he was the street sweeper of the desert, a man who put his life at risk exclusively for the money. I'm not saying that he went against the law, but he put himself within the wings of the law only when it was something that he could profit by.
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Cinema through spectacle, through the entertainment of spectacle, tells the story of many actual problems in life. Because who ever doesn't want to read between the lines can just enjoy the entertainment and the show and can go home happy.
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There was also the myth of the western films. But my films are borrowed not from the story of the West in America but from the story of cinema.
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When I was young, I believed in three things: Marxism, the redemptive power of cinema, and dynamite. Now I just believe in dynamite.
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My discussion is one that has gone all the way from Fistful of Dollars through Once Upon a Time in America. But if you look closely at all these films, you find in them the same meanings, the same humor, the same point of view, and, also, the same pains.
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In my childhood, America was like a religion. Then, real-life Americans abruptly entered my life - in jeeps - and upset all my dreams.
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I had always thought that the 'good,' and the 'bad' and the 'violent' did not exist in any absolute, essential sense. It seemed to me interesting to demystify these adjectives in the setting of a Western. An assassin can display a sublime altruism while a good man can kill with total indifference.
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If there is an auteur who influenced me - and there is only one - that is Charlie Chaplin. And he never won an Oscar.
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I think women have always been considered objects, especially in the genre of westerns.
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I think even in American schools, they must be studying in a specialized manner.
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I don't enter into particulars with Ennio Morricone. I give him the feeling and the suggestions of the characters.
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I am searching as Diogenes did with his lantern for all of these wonderful human beings. I haven't found them yet.
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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.
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Women had enormous weight in America. And they still have. Because they are truly the padrone owners, masters of America.
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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.
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America is so varied and exciting that after six months, you go back and find it completely changed.
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I work with intuition. With interpreters. I have my own method. I know exactly what I want from actors. Sometimes, I even recite the role to the actor if it's not clear.
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My mother was an actress. My father was an actor and a director. I am the son of filmmakers.
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Producing films was a distraction for me for which I payed dearly.
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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.