Bernardo Bertolucci Quotes

Everyone thinks 'Lola' was my first film, but I'd made 14 movies before that.

I did a lot of short films before doing feature films.

'Ashes of Time' was my third film, and as a young director at that point, it's not very often that you have the chance to make a big martial arts film, so of course I jumped at this opportunity.

I've directed seven movies and know a thing or two about dealing with unexpected crises.

I don't miss scenes at all the way that I used to miss them when I was younger making a film. It's actually quite fun to get rid of them now.

For me, I've always taken being on a set as my school, because I've been working since I was ten.

It was great. I mean, it's a blast directing underwater stuff.

I was making films when I was about 12 years old - Super-8 films.

What I've been doing with my misfit, so-called acting career in film from day one on my first film, 'Spanking The Monkey', is, I've kind of made a concerted effort to hijack my acting career to turn it into film school, because I've always had the blasphemous idea of becoming a reasonably competent filmmaker in my own right some day.

I had done student films for the School Of Visual Arts and for NYU and all these schools in New York, so those were my first film experiences, but they were student films, so I guess they don't really count.

When I started doing movies, every crew member was older than me.

I have been a director who has starred, participated on both sides of the filmmaking process.

The first movie I was ever on was a Dennis Hopper film down in Peru.

I've seen it happen with other directors. Sometimes there's a period where, if they're lucky, they get the financing where they can make two films in a year.

I wanted to try directing.

'The Custodian' was my first film, and there were so many lessons to learn in that week. It was really fun, but for me, I look at it as a training film, and I'm not really proud of my work in it.

I have done many movies. Some simultaneously and others after taking a break.

I took an incredibly roundabout route getting into feature films.

I want to do a movie, but it has to be the right movie, whether it's independent or a studio movie. I'm much more open to being a supporting actor. At the age of 60, I'll be second fiddle. Fine. I'm happy to do it.

My early career was a real rush of movies and stardom - it was almost overwhelming.

There is no doubt that we live in an age of unprecedented, and sometimes terrifying, technological advance where the speed of advance so often outstrips the necessary ethical considerations.

My last experience of film-making was Tickets, a three-episode film in Italy, the third of which is directed by myself. It's not for me to judge whether it's a good film or a bad film, but what I could say is that nobody had a cultural or linguistic issue with what was produced.

I wanted to be in film. I wanted to be a film student, possibly be a director or cinematographer, not an actor. That was my goal. I didn't believe I had the physical beauty that I'd seen projected and advertised in movies, in theater. It just wasn't for me.

I think it's maybe because Sergeant Pepper's came out when I was about 13 or 14 and that was a pretty impressionable age, and it was such a kind of radical period. But that period of the Beatles really had a big influence on me and I think are directly related to hyperinstruments.

[Swiss Armi Man] was a super joyful film to go make. I mean, there was stuff that was, like, totally bananas. But it was kind of par for the course every day with that stuff.