I didn't want [actress] just to be a woman standing at the window, waving hello and goodbye to men as they came and went in the world that they were struggling through. I wanted her to have a true function. Sergio Leone More Quotes by Sergio Leone More Quotes From Sergio Leone I don't want to do a war film per se. Nor do I want to do a political film. Sergio Leone political want war I'm terrified by young people who are doing what they think is film making. What they're really doing is taking that convulsed, fast rhythm of commercials. It's not film making. Sergio Leone film people thinking I admit that some of my ideas may have turned out to be pessimistic in nature. Sergio Leone pessimistic may ideas It's a little hard to avoid putting both war and politics in, in that they both come into the activity, but on their own. My basic idea is to do a great love film set in the hell of 1942. At that moment, hell was Leningrad. Underneath all this, of course, is a film about dissension between the two most important countries in the world, the United States and the Soviet Union. I think it is a must at this point to talk about cooperation instead of the rancor and hatred and competition between nations. Sergio Leone war country thinking I had more trouble than I had a sense of utility or satisfaction. But it served to occupy me and to keep me occupied in a field that I love - which was cinema - while I was waiting to realize the film that I wanted to do, which was Once Upon a Time in America, which took ten years of thinking and working to realize. Sergio Leone america years thinking What I do is give Ennio Morricone suggestions and describe to him my characters, and then, quite often, he'll possibly write five themes for one character. And five themes for another. And then I'll take one piece of one of them and put it with a piece of another one for that character or take another theme from another character and move it into this character.... And when I have my characters finally dressed, then he composes. Sergio Leone writing character moving Because the life that I live - the life that we all live - is filtered through [one's own] experience. It isn't necessarily optimistic when you look at the political phenomena, the different things that are going on in the world. Sergio Leone live-life optimistic political I think, to go to the bottom of it all, that the films I have made and my kind of film-making is a hybrid type of film-making - in that it isn't American, it isn't Italian. Sergio Leone italian kind thinking America is so varied and exciting that after six months, you go back and find it completely changed. Sergio Leone six-months exciting america Charlie Chaplin, too, through spectacle, contraband certain ideas, put them through, ideas that even today are not being expressed by great statesmen and politicians. Sergio Leone politician today ideas I must be honest and say that I was under the fascination of films. I was fascinated by all films, even the words of them. If I was to do a more-precise analysis of the situation, I have to admit that I was more entertained by the bad films than the good ones. Because when something is beautiful, it is there; it is finished; it is done. It doesn't have to be touched or be worked upon. Sergio Leone fascination analysis beautiful There's my pessimism. Because I didn't know yet that type of film is always going to become more extinct, that there won't be anymore. Because there will always be more films that win five Oscars like Terms of Endearment. Sergio Leone oscars film winning 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. Sergio Leone taken reality america The very fact of seeking specialization is probably what makes America so great in these two hundred years. But also, the sensation that somebody who wants to understand America doesn't really need to visit it much. Sergio Leone two america years Just go to Disneyland. You have the impact of how the Americans think, how they dream, what they desire, how they have a good time, what they prefer. I associate this with young people. But many times I think this infantile quality is much better than the false, incomplete concept of adulthood. Sergio Leone impact dream thinking It is clear that the vehicle of the western was a very interesting vehicle for me to contraband some of my ideas. Sergio Leone vehicle ideas interesting 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. Sergio Leone cinema stories america I have to be honest about one thing. When I want to America, no on asked me how I was. Everyone always asked me, "How much do you make?" Sergio Leone honest want america When one goes to see Modern Times, for instance, one understands much more about socialism than listening to the man who was then head of the Socialist movement in Italy. Sergio Leone socialism listening men I think politics should be expressed in this way and not in other ways. And not just politics - sentiments, even certain states of being. Sergio Leone states way thinking
