Top 15 Quotes & Sayings by Jesus Franco

I don't think it's so important to be a movie director. It's a beautiful profession, but no more than to be a cartoon writer. A very rich cartoon writer. I've done a lot of films, and I know deeply that, in all of cinema, there is no director who is as good as Shakespeare.

I am Christian from when I was little. Because of the politics in Spain, everybody must be Christian by law. But I'm not a real big believer. I believe in people. I believe in life. But not especially in Catholics or priests or whatever.

I don't think I've done anything important or magnificent. I'm a worker, and the thing I prefer in my life is cinema. When I'm working in cinema, I'm happy. And that's all, you know?

I am not retired! I will be retired the day I die.

I don't like my movies. I prefer John Ford's movies. I've made some movies that are interesting, or that have some point, or are more or less beautiful. But I've never made anything big to me, from my point of view. "Big" like John Ford or someone of that kind. I say John Ford because he is my favorite director.

Of all the things about de Sade, I would argue he is funny. A lot of people didn't understand de Sade. No. 1, he is a very good writer, and No. 2, he had the courage to talk about a lot of things that in public, even now, almost nobody has the courage to talk about. He would do it with a kind of funny way - not the stories themselves, but the way he tells them. He is never serious.

I don't think I have a definitive film. Such a thing is not possible for me.

I never worked on different films at the same time. I made one by one. I never made two or three films together. This is impossible! I only have one head. It is impossible for me to think about two films at the same time. There are a lot of these legends about me, and I don't know why. I'm not a legendary man. But the people all the time say I make three films at the same time, and it's not true. Don't believe these kinds of things.

I love cinema. It is the most important thing to me. Life is cinema. It has been this way since I was a child of about 14, and I was going every day to see the movies.

I don't think I've made good movies. I've just made some movies more disgusting than others.

I think a very good movie director makes films to entertain people, but not to be considered like they were Cervantes, you know? One of the biggest problems now, with all the festivals and everything, is a confusion between the quality and the beauty and the highness of things. A film is a film. It's something to entertain you a couple hours. Not to be considered as if it were Shakespeare.

I don't care about being remembered. I'm not a wonderful writer or anything. This should be reserved for people who really did something great. I think it's a mistake to consider the movie director as if they were great artists.

In the point of view of my personal feelings, I love the music as well as the cinema, but the future of a trumpet player - in the money point of view, but also any point of view - is very short on expectations. The life of a moviemaker can be glorious and wonderful. It can put your life in the best of possibilities. I decided to forget music. Not forget, because this is impossible, but to work in cinema, and just to be someone who loves music, and who tries to make music with his films.

In English, you can find writers with a wonderful sense of humor, like Oscar Wilde. But in the French language, this is very special, and de Sade is one of the very brave writers with a sense of humor. But most people don't understand that. When they read de Sade, they take it seriously. They say, "Oh, what an awful man!" He is really a very unknown writer.

I think death and sex go together. If you shoot about sex in a funny way, it's different. But when you are doing sex in a serious way, death is always around.