film-directors-from-italy

"Je ne suis pas un pessimiste: c'est une forme d'optimisme, selon moi, de voir aussi le mal."

"Non sono un pessimista: vedere anche il male è, a mio parere, una forma di ottimismo."

"One day we were at the Ritz in Madrid, in a suite. Moana went to the bathroom and came back wearing only her underwear. She looked at me and said, ‘I will never make love to you. I love you very much. I am HIV positive.’ It was a sentence that struck me deeply. I hugged her and she was moved. [...] The most curious thing about Moana Pozzi was that she hated sex. [...] She was completely frigid. It's quite sad: she did a job that she actually hated. Her frigidity led her to do this job with a certain anger, she did it with little joy. Honestly, she didn't understand what was the right path to happiness. For her, born in a poor neighborhood, it was about making money any way she could, even at the risk of unhappiness."

"He was the greatest clown of his generation, as rare as the great poets. A ruthless, revolutionary, and liberating child. Fantozzi represents us all, humiliates us and corrects us. With him, all anonymous people have found their Lord. Paolo created the first true national mask, something that will last forever."

"Carlo Martello ritorna dalla battaglia di Poiters (Carlo Martello Returns from the Battle of Poiters) came about in a curious way. In one room, Mauro De André, Fabrizio's older brother, was preparing for his civil procedure exam, while in the next room, Paolo Villaggio and Fabrizio were helping each other with their private law exam. After a month, Mauro passed the exam with flying colors, a milestone in a journey that led him to become a distinguished lawyer. Fabrizio and Villaggio, on the other hand, composed a pleasant and playful song about Carlo Martello and another entitled Il fannullone (The Slacker). They did not take the exam and never graduated."

"Young people have a habit right now of saying that you are unhappy, that you are afraid of the future, that this or that is to blame... and you blame our generation above all, the thieves, the politicians... no, that's not true, you are also to blame, believe me. My generation! When the war ended, the country was completely destroyed, there were no roads, no highways, no bridges, no hospitals, there was nothing, there were only churches. After a horrific tragedy like the war, there was nothing left, nothing, nothing! In fifteen years, we in Italy became the fourth most industrialized country on Earth. In just fifteen years! Oooh! So I beg you, guys, it's your fault. This constant complaining! I'm starting to think that we're happier as old people than you are as young people. Think about it, it's incredible!"

"He was caustic, cynical, bizarre, and unpredictable. His irony was fierce, but in my opinion it hid a mysterious side of him that he didn't want to reveal. His fragility, his deep melancholy, which he didn't want to show. And that was his charm. He dressed in skirts, he was crazy, but that's how he was. His eccentricity wasn't ostentatious, he was just naturally eccentric."

"He wasn't a very likeable character, Paolo... he was cynical... just like some of his characters. (Orchidea De Santis)"

"Fantozzi is the prototype of the poor wretch, the quintessence of nothingness."

"Our culture has not yet accepted an inferior culture such as that which comes from Africa. It is not skin color, it is cultural difference. Undoubtedly, it cannot be compared to the great European culture. [...] We do-gooders, we Europeans, we priests, we saints... we have all always pretended to be better than we really are. [...] Relations with black people today, except perhaps with Obama, are still marked by a slight hypocrisy."

"[After winning the 1990-1991 championship] I don't believe in God, but now I believe in Sampdoria."

"Fantozzi no longer dresses like he did in the 1960s; baggy pants and boxer shorts, an incredible wife, an unimaginable daughter. Fantozzi had a different vibe back then. The name itself, Fantozzi, sounded like “fantocci” (puppets). All of that is gone now."

"The audience that goes to see Vasco Rossi is made up of young Fantozzis: frayed sweaters, military boots, the same Martini sports glasses, the same imitation watches."

"Comic behavior is childish behavior, which means that all comedians are children, immature. Stan Laurel is a child, he cries all the time [...], Jerry Lewis was a silly child, Totò never really touched a woman, Sordi the same. [...] Childish behavior, I would say, brings to light, in a sudden, unexpected way, the happiest period of life: childhood, which provokes a great emotion of happiness and therefore laughter. All great comedians have always moved and behaved immaturely, like children."

"I met him for the first time in Pocol, above Cortina. I was an angry kid who swore a lot. he liked me because I was tormented and restless, and he was the same, only he was more controlled, perhaps because he was older than me, so he immediately took on the role of older brother and said to me: “Look, you mustn't swear, you swear to be the center of attention, you're an asshole.”"

"Paolo was the first teacher, cinematographically speaking, not only the teacher in the film Marco Tullio Sperelli, but a teacher of cinematic experience. We were all 14 children there. [...] Paolo was everything except the Fantozzi we expected him to be. [He was] a very serious person, very dutiful, very precise, not very clumsy... serious. Getting to know him in person and realizing that he was a totally different man from his character [...] was strange, especially through the eyes of an 8-year-old child."

"I had seen Villaggio on television: he had an explosive personality. His intelligence was a constant source of enrichment for me. He created the character of Fantozzi, around whom he built a galaxy of extraordinary faces. Including mine. I played my part with the awareness that I was acting in a cartoon."

"Did I say that the Pope (John Paul II) doesn't believe in God?[14] I really think so. Come on. The Pope is too intelligent a person to believe in God."

"At the beginning of spring, we used to go to Sampierdarena, a suburb of Genoa that is still one of the most atrocious things I have ever seen, of a terrible, repugnant atrocity. I acted as a guide and we were all equipped with fake tourist guides. [He stands up and begins to tell the story, using gestures to help him.] We started out like tourists. ‘What you see here [raising his voice] is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful places in the world!’ [laughs] When a few people had gathered, intrigued to say the least, we began to say, 'How wonderful! How beautiful! Come, come here, look how well you can see' [laughs]. And then Fabrizio or someone else in our group would say, 'Look, apparently, it looks like shit [laughs]. But this is one of the most repulsive places on the face of the earth!"

"(About Vittorio Gassman) Totò and Sordi were the funniest, Mastroianni the most charming, but Vittorio was the most complete: a great man of theater, cinema, and literature. He was a prince, far removed from the charlatanism of our milieu. His presence was enjoyable for his culture, his entertainment, and the honesty with which he approached every subject."

"Fantozzi at that time was a happy wretch; at least he had a steady job."

"(About Cécile Kyenge) He's not very charming. Absolutely not. Also because he speaks Italian... and he doesn't even have an Italian passport. [...] [The appointment to the Ministry of Integration is] Superfluous. It was very theatrical. [...] [Appointing a black minister] It's superfluous; all in all, it doesn't solve the problem [of integration]."

"Paolo felt more like a writer than an actor. And it's a shame that only Federico Fellini and Lina Wertmüller recognized his talent. Paolo shouldn't have been reduced and relegated to the Fantozzi character that he himself had invented and that brought him success."

"There haven't been many people as free as you in a country where satire is only directed at those who pose no threat. For this reason too, dear Paolo, Italy without you is a little sadder from today."

"I am enraged by this tendency, which exists above all in Italy, perhaps because of its Catholic roots, to recognize the merits of artists only after their death. As if death ennobled them."

"(About Roberto Benigni He is always over the top, a euphoric clown. Only when he talks about money with his wife does he become very serious. His voice and face change. The farmer in him comes out. Benigni is a great man, even if he leaves nothing written."

"Benigni appeals to Fantozzis precisely because he is easy to understand, very comforting, a bit Chaplinesque."

"Benigni and Villaggio are two overlooked and neglected treasures. Two actors who bring health and vitality to cinema... Ignoring their potential seems to me to be one of the many faults that can be attributed to our producers."

"(About Achille Campanile) He was my idol. But he was just surreal. He couldn't do social satire because the regime wouldn't let him. So he came up with ingenious solutions."

"At my age, you're afraid of discoveries. A discovery would force you to change your frame of reference."

"When there are two Italians, they confide secrets to each other; three make philosophical observations; four play cards; five play poker; six talk about soccer; seven found a party in which they all secretly aspire to the presidency; eight form a mountain choir."

"I spent my childhood and youth with Fabrizio De André, then twenty years with Gassman, another twenty with Tognazzi, then Ferreri, Volonté, Fellini... In short... I only talk ‘about’ someone, not ‘with’ someone... oh well!"

"TV is more dangerous because it is transparent: it magnifies flaws."

"[If you had the extraordinary—and also terrible—power to rule a country for a moment, to do whatever you wanted, what would you give its citizens first?] The question is a somewhat utopian one, and therefore the answer can only be utopian. Something that humanity will hardly achieve, perhaps at the end of its evolution: equality."

"There were two very beautiful blond children, the children of rich people: all the children of rich people are blond and look alike, while the children of Calabrian farm laborers are dark-skinned and look different from each other."

"Fantozzi is also a therapist: he freed Italians from the fear of being Italian."

"With Fantozzi, I tried to recount the adventure of those who live in that part of life that everyone (except the children of the powerful) goes through or has gone through: the moment when you are under someone else's thumb. Many come out of it with honor, many went through it at twenty, others at thirty, many remain there forever, and they are the majority. Fantozzi is one of them."

"But it is not a book about [Fantozzi] at all, it is just a collection of Fantozzi stories that I wrote for L'Europeo, with a few extra semicolons, jotted down at random. Writing will never be my job, it's something I do for fun."

"I realize that for the general public, Reder had become Filini, but we must remember that his career went far beyond Filini. He was an extraordinary actor, invaluable to many great directors."

"(About Silvio Berlusconi) He told me I'm a great comedian. I'm very grateful to him for that and for losing the last election."

"I don't like Eduardo. I'm with Peppino. And even if Eduardo remains one of the few Italian authors, along with Pirandello, Goldoni, and Fo, to be performed abroad, who knows what the future holds. Perhaps posterity will appreciate Pappagone's extraordinary tirades more than Eduardo's serious, boring, and pretentious ones. A virtue for our Catholic and falsely committed country."

"Peppino was not born just to make people laugh. Those in the extra category like him can do anything. It is no coincidence that he played Molière, Machiavelli, and Pinter. Eduardo, on the other hand, only played himself."

"I make films that people call ‘horror’ because I want to make films about real things that happen in the world. And most real things aren’t very nice."

"Dante's relationship with women is very complex, because the range of real women in Dante's life and in Dante Alighieri's imagined life is very different. There is an idealization of women that occurs when he is nine years old. He lost his real mother when he was five years old, so he is the son of a father and a stepmother. The neighbors of the Portinari family had six daughters and one of these is Beatrice, a nine-year-old girl, her age. Dante meets her gaze and from that moment he becomes almost a prisoner of that gaze, which is why nine is Beatrice's magic number, because he meets her at nine years old. The Poet follows her to Florence for another nine years, without ever receiving encouragement from her, until at eighteen, before entering the church where the girl goes every evening in Santa Margherita dei Cerchi which is the Portinari church, suddenly he decides to stop, look at him and smile at him and says "I greet you" which is the only phrase Dante will hear from Beatrice. Dante remains completely satisfied by this smile and considers it the sealing of a relationship that has had no other type of concretization, nothing else, just this look and this greeting. He tells this story in this wonderful diary which is the Vita Nova, a set of poems and prose writings that he wrote in the aftermath of Beatrice's death."

"(Referring to the scoutism) I believe I have had, in that world, experiences that neither family nor school can offer you. Like the "campfires" before going to sleep. Those were also moments of socialization. Which could be playful, cheerful, with skits and jokes. But also very serious: moments in which we discussed each other, talked about each other, confided in each other, knowing that no one would ever make fun of what they felt. If I am a person who has a certain ease in talking about himself without hiding his own weaknesses and mistakes, I owe it to those moments there, to the "campfires"."

"In my life, right after my parents I put scoutism They taught me two things above all. The first is that we need to give meaning to each of our days. The second is the sacredness of life, one with the sacredness of nature."

"Silvano Agosti, Lettere dalla Kirghisia, Edizioni l'Immagine, Rome C.E.2007."

"D'amore si vive (C.E.1984)"

""Better lick the floor" but what's horrendous in this culture is that "licking the floor" has even become an aspiration, you know? But it's monstrous that the guy has to go to work eight hours a day and he has to be grateful to those who make him lick the floor, you know?"

"The real slave, the true slave defends the master, not fights him. Because the slave is not so much the one who has the chain on his foot as the one who is no longer able to imagine freedom."