Quotes

I like women, especially beautiful ones. If they have a good face and figure, I would much prefer to watch them being murdered than an ugly girl or man. I certainly don't have to justify myself to anyone about this. I don't care what anyone thinks or reads into it. I have often had journalists walk out of interviews when I say what I feel about this subject.

The sound, it looks wonderful

We had many good directors - John Carpenter, Brian De Palma - but things have become polluted by business, money and bad relationships. The success of the horror genre has led to its downfall.

[Phenomena (1985)] was inspired by something I heard about insects being used to solve crimes, and because insects have always fascinated me I began to make a story around this idea. You know, it's a terrible thing, but there are many insects that are disappearing. Becoming extinct. But most people only want to kill them. You know, insects have souls, too; they're telepathic . . . amazing. People want to save the whales and dolphins, but nobody wants to save the insects. I'm a vegetarian, because I don't want to kill things to eat.

Horror is the future. And you cannot be afraid. You must push everything to the absolute limit or else life will be boring. People will be boring. Horror is like a serpent; always shedding its skin, always changing. And it will always come back. It can't be hidden away like the guilty secrets we try to keep in our subconscious.

I wanted to develop the idea of the Three Mothers, the origin of all sorrow and pain. Suspiria (1977) is about The Mother of Sighs; and Inferno (1980) is about the Mother of Darkness.

The process of writing and directing drives you to such extremes that it's natural to feel an affinity with insanity. I approach that madness as something dangerous and I'm afraid, but also I want to go to it, to see what's there, to embrace it. I don't know why but I'm drawn.

Horror by definition is the emotion of pure revulsion. Terror of the same standard, is that of fearful anticipation.

The opera we used in the film [Opera (1987)] was "Macbeth", which has a tradition - also in the theatre - of being bad luck. People all warned against using it, suggested using "La Traviata" or "La Bohème", and I said, "This is just a story, don't be foolish," but maybe they were right. With ["Opera"] I had a lot of English crew - that was something new for me - and I learned many things from them. Overall, though, it was a terrible experience. You know, many cuts were made after I was finished, even though I protested. Many things happened. Vanessa Redgrave was scheduled to be in the film, and she pulled out. One of the actors was crushed by a car. I was engaged to be married, but by the end of the picture that was finished. My father died during the shooting . . . all kinds of things. But I felt I had started with "Macbeth", so I had to finish. And anyway, there could be no ravens in Cosi Fan Tutte.

I love Russian cinema. Dziga Vertov is my favorite. [Andrei Tarkovsky] so-so. I prefer the fantasy of [Sergei Eisenstein]'s October (Ten Days that Shook the World) (1928).

Deep Red (1975) is my favorite movie. The character David Hemmings plays is very much based on my own personality. It was a very strong film, very brutal, and of course the censors were upset. It was cut by almost an hour in some countries.

Each film I make changes me in some way. When I start the picture I'm one person and by the time I finish I'm another.

[The Stendhal Syndrome (1996)] "Ever since my very first movie censors around the world have focused their attention to my work. The only movie that has never been cut anywhere is The Cat O' Nine Tails. Everything else has been tampered with to some degree. Here Anna is affected by the pictures she sees fixed to gallery walls. Audiences are affected by the violent images of mine they see on their screens. Suspiria has often been cited as causing viewers to faint. But this is my art and I'll defend it to my dying day. Although watching violence in movies may make some people aggressive, they can learn about their world from that. Surely if there was no violence in the media, everyone would have to learn only by real experience. Now I don't know about you, but I don't particularly want to go out and pick a fight to get a bloody nose. Removing it to a cathartic experience is a much better idea and why The Stendhal Syndrome has its place as an important argument in the anti-censorship debate".

Is it right to be obsessed with looking at terrible things and sharing them with other people?

Films are dreams. Many, many critics say to me that my films are not good because they are too unbelievable, but this is my style. I tell stories like they are dreams. This is my imagination.

[on working with Sergio Leone] Sergio would discuss, not write. He would describe things very technically: first comes this shot, then the camera goes up, then moves in, and so on. Movies are not two people talking - that is theatre. The movie is the camera. Sergio could judge a script in two minutes: he would flip through it and if he saw lots of dialogue it was no good; if it had lot of descriptions then it was interesting. That is something I learned from him.

When Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) came out in Italy, it was the same as A Fistful of Dollars (1964): it meant nothing to the critics. I found that unbelievable. But the public loved it, they went crazy for it. Sergio [Leone] had achieved greatness. This film was impossible to better: after this, the western was finished. It's such a nostalgic film, a very sad film. I love how slow it is. How enormous. It will be here forever.

[on the process of writing the story of Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) with Bernardo Bertolucci and Sergio Leone] I started work on the screenplay at home, with Bernardo Bertolucci. We began with nothing except an idea of Sergio's: he wanted to have a woman as lead for the first time. I would write on my own, then Bernardo would write on his own, then we would write together. Once a week Sergio would come to see how we were getting on, and offer his thoughts. He was incredible at generating ideas. He made me realise the director should always be involved in some way with the screenwriting.

I first came to cinema as a passionate filmgoer, when I was a child. Then, when I was a very young man, I became a film critic precisely because of my knowledge of cinema. I did better than others because of this. Then I moved on to screenwriting. I wrote a film with Sergio Leone, Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). And then I moved to directing.