"I remember seeing a trailer for Brazil in the cinema, and it was like nothing I’d ever seen. I was desperate to watch it; I remember cutting out magazine articles about it and daydreaming about what it was like. I was too young to get in to the cinema to see it, and it was five years before I finally got to view it. I loved it. To me, Brazil has everything: it’s funny, horrible, elegant, and messy. It has De Niro in and throws him away, has the hero . . . well, you know how it ends. From Brazil I went back and watched all Gilliam’s movies and was introduced to Python. I’ve bought this again and again and again. It felt right to have this on Criterion, to sit with my various VHS copies."

"In preparation for my Christmas film, White Reindeer, I watched this movie and wrote down a description of every single shot, including each camera move and change in blocking. Not only is Heaven Sirk’s most fully realized, subversive takedown of suburban hypocrisy, it’s also the best Christmas movie of all time, and such a marvel of style and camera direction that you barely notice how intricate its construction is until you force yourself to examine it. Sirk said that, in cinema, “motion is emotion,” and that ethos reaches its zenith in the zoom in on Jane Wyman’s reflection in a television screen. This is nothing less than the greatest dolly movie in cinema history. If anyone ever tells you irony and sincerity can’t coexist, tell them they are painfully, tragically wrong."