About Mario Monicelli: Mario Monicelli was a six times-Oscar nominated Italian director and screenwriter and one of the masters of the Commedia all'Italiana (Comedy Italian style).
The themes that make one laugh always stem from poverty, hunger, misery, old age, sickness, and death. These are the themes that make Italians laugh, anyway.
A comedy that is ironic, sometimes bitter, in some cases even dramatic, tragic: This is what Italian comedy is.
I always look at a group of people who want to attempt an enterprise greater than their means. They begin on this enterprise and they fail.
Death doesn't frighten me, it bothers me. It bothers me for example that someone can be there tomorrow but me I am no longer there. What bothers me is no longer being alive, not being dead.
