"I just am an Italian girl. My father grew up in that exact era and I remember seeing it in Italian class, in school, and then going home and showing it to him and tears streaming down his face as he watched it. He was a boy with a pair of shoes and who was fascinated by the movies, and there was, like, one theater in his town. So that movie has just always struck a personal nerve for me as a daughter of an immigrant."

"Dryly humorous, collection of tales about a poor Italian family and simple things in life. The book was recommended to me by an inspirational tutor at university and this collection, more than any, motivated me to try to write short screenplays."

"On some level this is an Italian postwar neorealist film about the plight of organized labor. But at its heart is a story about women turned against each other as they are reduced to a state of desperate sexuality in order to survive."

"This charming glimpse of the lives of the residents of a small Italian town paints a well-balanced picture of Fellini’s hometown. The characters are funny and unique. The stories are original. And the teenagers are as obsessed with sex as I was. :)"

"Then the films that made me want to become an actor were films that were recommended by my father when I was 16, and I got my first VHS player, and they were very often these French films, Italian films in the ’60s and ’70s, and one of the films that impressed me the most was Rocco and His Brothers. Neo-realism — Rocco and His Brothers with Alain Delon, which is great because it’s told in different chapters. I think five chapters. Telling the story of each of these brothers, of this poor southern Italian family coming to Milan trying to begin a new life, and the authenticity of that neo-realistic Italian filmmaking, is very impressive. Also the drama, the way it is told, and big family issues of rivalry and jealousy and love and hatred are told in a magnificent and very moving way, and with a wonderful young Alain Delon playing Rocco."

"If I had to describe this film in three words, I would say: “Charm, charm, charm.” The beautiful Stefania Sandrelli is seduced by her sister’s fiancé, who then refuses to marry her because she’s no longer a virgin. The moral logic of the Italian family is hilarious."