Luchino Visconti Quotes

I like melodrama because it is situated just at the meeting point between life and theater. ~ Luchino Visconti

I could make a film in front of a wall if I knew how to find the data of man's true humanity and how to express it. ~ Luchino Visconti

[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.

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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. ~ Martin Scorsese

I think today there are too many directors taking themselves seriously; the only one capable of saying anything really new and interesting is Luis Bunuel. He's a very great director. ~ Luchino Visconti

Don't underestimate Laura Antonelli. She's burning to do well. And then she has an extraordinary face, even without make-up. It's not with her that I'd discuss literature. I speak only of the film 'L'Innocente,' and what she does she does well. ~ Luchino Visconti

The prince in 'The Leopard' was a very complex character - at times autocratic, rude, strong - at times romantic, good, understanding - and sometimes even stupid, and above all, mysterious. ~ Luchino Visconti

Tony Visconti and I had been wanting to work together again for a few years now. Both of us had fairly large commitments and for a long time we couldn't see a space in which we could get anything together. ~ David Bowie

My dear Péguy, it would, however, be wrong to wait, to postpone continually. He who takes the road of later ends then on the road of never. I know some people who seem to turn life into a perpetual waiting room. The trains come and go, and they say: 'I'll leave another time! I'll make a confession on my deathbed!' Visconti-Venosta said of the 'hero Anselmo':

A day goes by, and then another,
But the hero Anselmo never returns.

Here we have the opposite: an Anselmo who never sets out. ~ Pope John Paul I

We know that he gave Aschenbach Mahler's first name, and also his facial features. So Visconti picks up on something interesting. That led me to think about ways of developing further the Aschenbach-Mahler connection. ~ Philip Kitcher

My profession is called record production. ~ Tony Visconti

Any respectable artist has really given up on a label because the labels are still kidding themselves that the only way to go is to sign these big names like Lady Gaga and expect to make gazillions. ~ Tony Visconti

We always started these albums as making demos, that went right on until Scary Monsters. ~ Tony Visconti

Towards the end of the seventies pop was gaining the momentum and respectability was very high with groups like Yes and Queen who were making "classical" rock records. They were also bringing in big bucks. So the eighties became the "bottom line" decade. ~ Tony Visconti

You could make some great sounds with technology. That's what recording is all about. What happens in the studio is very magical, and should be, in my opinion. ~ Tony Visconti

The object is to make a great record and you have to do whatever it takes. ~ Tony Visconti

Computers have virtually replaced tape recorders. ~ Tony Visconti

You don't necessarily need expensive gear or giant budgets to reach an audience. ~ Tony Visconti

I think the whole obsession with old gear is completely overblown. You don't need old-fashioned gear to make a great-sounding record. You don't even need [analog] tape. ~ Tony Visconti

Fortunately I own a vintage brain, and I am alive and well in the 21st century, still making records, still working at an intense pace and most of all, still having fun doing it. ~ Tony Visconti

The eighties turned the whole system upside down. They would sign three groups and give them five or ten million dollars each to make three records. Out of those three records maybe one would be a hit. The economy changed, and that's why the music changed. ~ Tony Visconti

I grew up to the sound of live music in our Brooklyn household. ~ Tony Visconti

Originally a record producer more or less hired a bunch of professionals to participate in a recording session, the performers and the technicians, and a music director was put in charge. That directly related to a film producer's job. ~ Tony Visconti

Marc Bolan had inspired so many people to pick up a guitar and join a band. ~ Tony Visconti

The look of good sense and prudence, even of the best kind, differs from that of genius, in that the former bears the stamp of subjection to the will, while the latter is free from it. And therefore one can well believe the anecdote [...] how once at the court of the Visconti, when Petrarch and other noblemen and gentlemen were present, Galeazzo Visconti told his son, who was then a mere boy (he was afterwards first Duke of Milan), to pick out the wisest of the company; how the boy looked at them all for a little, and then took Petrarch by the hand and led him up to his father, to the great admiration of all present. For so clearly does nature set the mark of her dignity on the privileged among mankind that even a child can discern it.

Therefore, I should advise my sagacious countrymen, if ever again they wish to trumpet about for thirty years a very commonplace person as a great genius, not to choose for the purpose such a beer-house-keeper physiognomy as was possessed by that philosopher [Hegel], upon whose face nature had written, in her clearest characters, the familiar inscription, "commonplace person. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Tell me how you wish me to deal with these enemies of yours, for they are no able to camp, and I will deliver them in your hands in whatever manner you wish.' Modern accounts invariably include the story of how dal Verme sent Hawkwood a fox in a cage, to say that he had the clever Englishman trapped. -Jacopo dal Verme to Giangaleazzo Visconti ~ William Caferro

Some people do rely too much on technology. Look, technology is wonderful and I love it. When I was in the UK and I had hit records I would also have a high tax bill at the end of the year, and that would be the time to buy up all the technology - it was write offs. ~ Tony Visconti

In August most of Europe goes on holiday. ~ Tony Visconti

Today's recording techniques would have been regarded as science fiction forty years ago. ~ Tony Visconti

I like to work with people who have a sense of putting a song over, and can sing in tune, and with passion. With technology you can polish a turd, but there's still no button you can press for passion. ~ Tony Visconti

I see wonderful films by Bertolucci, Visconti, and Fellini. ~ Vincente Minnelli

I love Logic Audio and have been using it for years. All my track outputs used to come up on my old board in the same order as in the old Mac G4 - 1 through 32, came up as 1 through 32, for instance. ~ Tony Visconti

My father loved people, children and pets. ~ Tony Visconti

His name is David Bowie and he's nineteen. Would you like to meet him? ~ Tony Visconti

But some great records are are being made with today's technology and there are still great artists among us. Likewise there are artists today who are so reliant on modern technology, they wouldn't have emerged when recording was more organic. ~ Tony Visconti

It is easily overlooked that what is now called vintage was once brand new. ~ Tony Visconti

Since my teen years I was interested in martial arts. ~ Tony Visconti