"This is the single most underrated film of the entire French New Wave. Its near obsessive tracking of Maurice Ronet through the wet Paris streets as he retraces the steps of a wasted life makes for one of the most tightly focused of the era’s film portraits of a desperate man at the end of his rope. Its slow build toward an inexorable end is Louis Malle’s most nuanced work—this from a director who was already noted for his almost classical discipline. Ronet, until then largely thought of as a lightweight romantic film actor, surrenders himself to the downhill yet strangely transcendent fate that awaits him on the mirror of his room."

"Most people know Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson album, but what's interesting is that in the early '90s, he actually went into a dark, weird phase that French people don't really like. They consider his music from that time weak. But for me, it's the best. It's porn, it's queer, it's rap before that was a thing in France. It's just him mumbling obscene things on drum-and-guitar heavy production, really raw and tough. At the same time, it's poetic. The contrast is interesting: it's beautiful but dirty. On this album, Gainsbourg is hiding behind nothing. You get everything: the obsessions, the lust, the weaknesses, the scars. You see everything ugly and everything beautiful."

"I should do something that’s a little more contemporary, maybe. Some Like It Hot. Marilyn Monroe in that film was one of my first memories of film. That’s why I love it. I remember watching it when I was really young and singing along. Well, those are really artistic choices, but I also love modern films. I love Chaplin films, and I love French films… But off the top of my head, those are the five. It’s quite a pretentious list in hindsight. [laughs] I mean, they’re not my favorites; I could go on for ten hours. That was just off the top of my head. But I’ve never been good with favorites."