"My fourth favorite movie — I think every top five list has to have an Audrey Hepburn movie in it. Probably the greatest face of the 20th century, if not Sophia Loren and perhaps Monroe. Maybe Ingrid Bergman. But certainly she changed everything for the waif look, and the modern woman, and the non-buxom bosomy girl; and also always played smart. But this movie — I know I sound like a chorus boy here but, Funny Face is just… the choreography, the split-screen work, Kay Thompson, my God. Just try to stare at Audrey Hepburn dancing in her wedding attire and stepping onto a raft into an idyllic French stream with swans floating around. And perfect choreography and synchronization with the camera. And the swooping crane shots and the music. It’s just a wonderful, wonderful film. And smart and funny — and beatniks in Paris, and fashion, and color, and, yeah, I just really love the film. Ahead of it’s time."

"In general, I’m not a big fan of French New Wave films, and Touki bouki is clearly inspired by their characteristic fragmented, slow-moving, alienating quality. But the world of Touki bouki is so beautiful and engrossing that it sucks you right in. When the cows come toward the camera in the opening shot, you know immediately that these cows have been color-coordinated to within an inch of their lives. I love this kind of super-deliberate film where each frame could stand on its own. Even the piles of garbage are perfectly composed. Mambéty’s visual sense of humor is terrific: the man trying to break up a fight between two women only to get beaten up himself, the taxi driver running away in his yellow socks, Mory in the paddleboat with the lecherous Charlie. The main characters, Mory and Anta, never ask for our sympathy, because they are too cool for us."

"Louis Malle is one of the great, underrated French directors. That’s the best film I’ve ever seen about children. It’s a very, very adult film so of course you have to take the kids very seriously. What is it they say? ‘Kids are father to the man,’ or something like that. What you are is what you were, really. It’s one of the most beautiful films I’ve ever seen; one of the saddest, most moving, genuine films ever. As a director I’ve done kids films — Slumdog has kids, and, I made a film called Millions — and it’s not easy to get kids to be good. You work hard at it. What is really difficult is to get every kid to be in the same film at the same time and I watch that film and every kid — and there’s a lot of kids in it, it takes place at a school — they’re all in the same film at the same time."