But you know, as you say, the original versions of my films are getting out there, slowly.

Films are dreams. Many, many critics say to me that my films are not good because they are too unbelievable, but this is my style. I tell stories like they are dreams. This is my...

So I haven’t thought about the critics for a long time.

I am young. I didn’t know that. But I don’t recognize myself. That’s my problem with the mirror. I see only the ugliness.

I went through a phase where I thought nostalgia was a bad thing.

Maybe when I stop making movies, I’ll understand my work better.

Every writer, to some extent, writes about himself.

For a long time, censors have been cutting my works. This makes me so sad, because many times they will tell me, ‘Television won’t like, so we have to cut, cut, cut!’

When I see a film I’ve finished, it’s like another person made it. Like another mind.

But now we have bought the film back and it will be shown in Paris in the original version for the first time in the next couple of months.

I like films to have something inside, I don’t mean a message, I mean something from the soul.

There’s nothing gratuitous about my films.

I don’t like landscapes. I like cities. Lots of cities. I like buildings. I like streets.

I first came to cinema as a passionate filmgoer, when I was a child. Then, when I was a very young man, I became a film critic precisely because of my knowledge of cinema. I...

When I was five. That’s when I started to love film.

I wanted something new, the supernatural. The witch, the sorcerer, I love this. I love the films of the witch and sorcerers and magic, it’s wonderful!

I’ve been lucky enough to have had the luxury of being able to make the picture I’ve wanted to make each time on my own terms and without compromise.

Fear has disappeared. No more fear. In Asia, it is different. They’ve discovered again the fear and the psychology of the characters. Without psychology, the horror film doesn’t exist.

I’m Dario Argento, and my style is something recognizable I think by the audience.

I make a film – and once I’ve made it, everyone comes along and says ‘Ah! This is a film that’s political, or social’ , or whatever. But I’m not telling the story that they...

I was very young, and I was on vacation with my family, and there was a retrospective of old films, and one of them was ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ with Claude Rains that was...

Young girls of 13 or 12 are great actors.

This is in contrast with some of my other movies where I used Ennio Morricone for his ability to create an epic feel through his music.

If you make a film normally it’s all right, the distributors are helpful and cooperative. But if you make a film that’s a little stange, a little bizarre, then all the time it’s a struggle...

My mother was a famous photographer for actresses, including Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, and so many. I remember I went to school close to my mother’s studio, and for years, I went to the studio...

I also don’t like films that are made just to make money, no this kind of film I don’t like.

I think the camera was always my obsession, the camera movements. Because for me it’s the most important thing in the move, the camera, because without the camera, film is just a stage or television...

Horror is the future. And you cannot be afraid. You must push everything to the absolute limit, or else life will be boring. People will be boring. Horror is like a serpent: always shedding its...

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.

The process of writing and directing drives you to such extremes that it’s natural to feel an affinity with insanity. I approach that madness as something dangerous, and I’m afraid, but also I want to...

I remembered watching the film from Alfred Hitchcock, ‘Dial M for Murder,’ and he shot almost all of that movie in one room. There was a genius in what Hitchcock did by manipulating things in...

I like to watch many things, especially strange films and something recent, not just the story.

My daughter, Asia, has been in many of my movies. I love working with her. In the beginning, I was not supportive of her being an actress, but now I think she is fantastic.

Americans are very enthusiastic. We have a new generation of moviegoers who love great horror films. I am a very imaginative man, and for me, it’s easy to speak with my dark side. I have...

But no one should have the right to manipulate my films in the first place.

‘Macbeth’ is one of the best operas ever, and doing it was a great experience. I added some things to the opera based from my experience on the movie – such as some of the...

Shooting movies has changed, and me too – I have changed. And then, every film I do, something in my mind, my soul, changes. My natural change, I change at the same time as the...

I wanted to get back to my style of 20 years ago after a long period of exploring horror and fantasy themes.

No, it’s interesting to remake a film for the contemporary audience today. I think it’s a good idea; it needs to respect the original idea. Don’t just take the title and change everything else.

You must push everything to the absolute limit or else life will be boring. People will be boring.

Each film I make changes me in some way. When I start the picture I’m one person and by the time I finish I’m another.

When I was a teenager, I read a lot of Poe.

The psychiatrists examine you and ask you about your life and work, and then they decide whether your film can be shown or not. It’s a horrible experience.

I’ve never gone into analysis. But Freud opened a door, I know.

This is my life – I want to tell stories. There is something huge inside me that pushes me to tell stories, and tell stories for an audience and everybody.

The Opera was a very cold film, a hopeless and dark film, no hope, no love.

Even in the former Soviet Union, they have good copies of my movies.

I want to do what I want when I want to do it not be dictated to by audiences.

To try and raise a budget for a film that is strictly for adults and both strong and graphic in content is not easy, especially when there is pressure to spend serious money on good...

It irritated me that my fans kept wanting me to retread old ground.