“[Luchino] Visconti came from the Milanese branch of one of Europe’s oldest families, whose roots can be traced back to the early 13th century. He might have appeared as a character in one of his own films about the aristocracy, such as Senso or The Leopard – that’s the life he was born into. But at a certain point in the 1930s, his passion for theatre, opera and the cinema set him on a radically different path.(...)He has often been referred to as a great political artist, but that’s too limiting and frozen a description. His sense of European history was vast and he knew the lives of the rich and powerful first hand – but at a certain point he became drawn to understand the other side of life, that of the poor and powerless. He had a strong sense of the particular manner in which absolutely everyone, from the Sicilian fishermen in his neorealist classic La Terra Trema to the Venetian aristocrats in Senso, was affected by the grand movements of history.”

“It seems to me that any sensible person must see that violence does not change the world and if it does, then only temporarily.”

“The cinema began with a passionate, physical relationship between celluloid and the artists and craftsmen and technicians who handled it, manipulated it, and came to know it the way a lover comes to know every inch of the body of the beloved. No matter where the cinema goes, we cannot afford to lose sight of its beginnings.”

“I do know that some Buddhists are able to attain peace of mind.”

“I'm sad to see celluloid go, there's no doubt. But, you know, nitrate went, by the way, in 1971. If you ever saw a nitrate print of a silent film and then saw an acetate print, you'd see a big difference, but nobody remembers anymore. The acetate print is what we have. Maybe. Now it's digital.”

“Very often I've known people who wouldn't say a word to each other, but they'd go to see movies together and experience life that way.”

“Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out.”

“Any film, or to me any creative endeavour, no matter who you're working with, is, in many cases, a wonderful experience.”

“I love studying Ancient History and seeing how empires rise and fall, sowing the seeds of their own destruction.”

“Now more than ever we need to talk to each other, to listen to each other and understand how we see the world, and cinema is the best medium for doing this.”

“Eradicating a religion of kindness is, I think, a terrible thing for the Chinese to attempt.”