"I saw this movie in Cincinnati right before I began shooting a new film, which was a terrible thing – because I couldn't get it out of my head and found myself spending too much time thinking about it and not on the work I had at hand. It's a real mystery of a movie, and I don't think I'll ever quite figure it out. Nor would I want to. If my new movie suffers, I'll hold Olivier Assayas partially accountable for making something so wonderful."

"Bo Widerberg is – like, to a certain extent, Jan Troell – one of the great modern filmmakers who has been least recognized. In a way, he was a Swedish Pialat – another great filmmaker whose international recognition remains problematic – his cinema intensely sensitive, inscribing itself in an osmosis with nature observed with an eye like that of the impressionists. The dry lyricism in this work is also that of revolutionary hopes at a labor movement’s inception, a lyricism also found in another of his films, Joe Hill."

"The ultimate film noir that’s not about violent crime, it’s just character assassination at its most brutal. Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster are beyond iconic in their performances; they become the embodiments of a rancid spirit that can sometimes be found in New York, in show business, in every business everywhere, where money talks and I’ll walk over your body to get some. “I’d hate to take a bite outta you, Sidney—you’re a cookie full of arsenic.” I like to say that to my wife."

"My friend, Ian La Frenais, gave me that, a cassette of it. He goes, "bet you haven’t heard this for a few years" because he’d found it in his drawer. And he gave to me and I played it for months, it must have been. I just loved all the songs on it. I love Colin Blunstone’s voice on it. And lovely, crafted songs. Great harmonies, what more could you want? I love The Zombies. This strikes me as lovely all the way through."

"It looked like a documentary. It’s like a found footage movie, but in the hood, and this s–t is incredible, the way he flipped it, because you could tell some of the elements were reenacted, but some of those elements look real as s–t. No lie. And this guy that’s starring in it — his last name is Snow; I don’t remember his first name — he’s not an actor. Not an actor. This is his real life. I’m tellin’ you man, this movie…"