Bernardo Bertolucci Quotes

"The Big Nipple" (referring to Los Angeles).

"I left the ending ambiguous, because that is the way life is." [His answer on 2 October 1979 to a woman who had just seen a special screening of
Luna at the Film Center of the School of the Art Institute, Chicago]

I don't film messages. I let the post office take care of those.

I am still against any kind of censorship. It's a subject in my life that has been very important.

A monoculture is not only Hollywood, but Americans trying to export democracy. I don't think you can in any way export culture with guns or tanks. I think that I used to love Hollywood movies. I remember great phases and moments. But, unfortunately, now is not the moment.

" . . . it gave me the chance of visiting a moment that I really loved a lot, the late 1960s. It was a kind of magic moment in many senses. There was a fantastic projection of the future, of utopias, which were very noble in some ways. I remember being young in the 1960s . . . we had a great sense of the future, a great big hope. This is what is missing in the youth today. This being able to dream and to change the world." [on making
The Dreamers.

[In response to
Ingmar Bergman's contention that
Last Tango in Paris (US title: "Last Tango in Paris") was really about homosexuals, and only in those terms did the film make sense and become interesting] "I accept all interpretations of my films. The only reality is before the camera. Each film I make is kind of a return to poetry for me, or at least an attempt to create a poem."