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Then I realized my early work did have something special that audiences adored apart from what I humbly thought about them. They occupy a distinguished niche in Italian film history and probably always will.

I'm a huge fan of Italian new realism, work by directors like Fellini and Vittorio De Sica. Their image of women is so beautiful.

In Italy, it is difficult to see a film in the original language because the voice actors here are a mafia.

There is in the DNA of the Italians a bit of madness, which in the overwhelming majority of cases is positive. It is genius. It is talent. It's the masterpieces of art. It's the food, fashion, everything that makes Italy great in the world.

I like Italian movies. I was frequently there in the '60s, in Rome and the vicinity. It was a great period in life. I was very influenced by their stuff.

But Italy is not an intellectual country. On the subway in Tokyo everybody reads. In Italy, they don't. Don't evaluate Italy from the fact that it produced Raphael and Michelangelo.

I tend to read mostly 20th-century fiction, 20th-, 21st-century fiction in Italian.

I feel that Italy's a country that's constantly looking out and constantly following what's happening in other cultural centers. What is being written in America, what is being published in England, what is being published in France. It's a culture that's always wanting to absorb and inform itself of other works, other writers, etc., etc.

Hollywood is a wonderful machine for making big movies. In France, we make smaller and more personal films, but if things keep changing, this will disappear. The industry in Italy is practically gone. Cinecitta now is used mostly by filmmakers from others places, like Martin Scorsese.

In fact, it is amazing how much European films - Italian, French, German and English - have recovered a certain territory of the audience in their countries over the last few years.