"It was my daughter Tiffany who made me see the beauty of this film—she loved it so much as a child, and I think in many ways it spoke to her on the difficult choice for women artists between art and love, a calling of career and the calling of the heart. The Technicolor restoration of the film is stunning. This was one of the early titles in the Criterion Collection, and it’s just gorgeous. The DVD production was helped along with the loving hands (certainly one of my favorite pair of hands on earth) of film editor Thelma Schoonmaker, Michael Powell’s widow.There’s fantastic commentary with cinematographer Jack Cardiff and Ian Christie, as well as Martin Scorsese, a close, dear friend of Powell’s. And actress Moira Shearer gives such a wonderful account of the feelings of awe and fear of the dancers around working with living ballet legend Leonide Massine . . . and how in spite of this, she and Massine came to get on like a house on fire. He would fill her with the most amazing tales of his life in the last true golden age of ballet with the great dance impresario Sergei Diaghilev—I cannot even imagine what a thrill these hours of conversation must have been!"

"I can’t explain this movie. It’s just perfection. Sad and funny, light and heavy, full of boisterous color and nonstop singing. Probably the most romantic movie I have ever seen. Catherine Deneuve has never been so lovely. I have never been to France, but I imagine it is just like it is depicted here. Maybe I will never go so I can keep my fantasy and save myself from disappointment. Jacques Demy was a singular talent. There was never anyone like him and there never will be again. I highly recommend the entire box set of his work, but this one will always be my favorite. I remember seeing it on the big screen at the Music Box in Chicago in the early nineties and walking out on clouds while also being filled with an intense melancholy. I can’t think of a single other movie that makes me feel both of those things at the same time and has left those feelings lingering inside me twenty-plus years later. Michel Legrand’s score is, it goes without saying, iconic and magnificent. And what this movie lacks in dancing, Demy makes up for in his constant gliding camera movements. As if the dance is between the actors and his lens. Pure cinema. Perfection."

"The album this song is on – A Girl Called Dusty – was in that pile of records that my friend's dad gave to me and that was the first I'd ever heard of her. I love the key change: it sounds really sad but really hopeful at the same time, it gives me a lot of feelings. I used to listen to this album obsessively. I'd sit and listen and while I was listening I'd type out the lyrics and listen again and try to dissect everything in the music and work out how it sounded like that. How it sounded so good – where each tambourine hit was in every bar, where the key change comes in and why that feels so good and whether the key change goes up or goes down. I got really analytical and lame about it. I just really wanted to understand why it was so good! It’s just as incredible as “Walk On By” and those other Burt Bacharach songs – they're all so emotional! I don't think I have listened to the Gene Putney version, or maybe it's something I've heard and not really noticed, I don't know. If it was on the radio I’ve probably heard it. It’s the Dusty version that I have in my heart."