"It’s a very personal choice because when I came to America from mainland China, I was an actress, but I never knew about Hollywood. I had heard of Hollywood but we didn’t have access to see Hollywood movies. A photographer was taking pictures of me and said, “You remind me of this actress named Audrey Hepburn.” I said, “Who is that?” He said, “Bai Ling, you have to watch her films,” and he found me Roman Holiday. That was the first Hollywood movie I’d ever seen. And it’s still one of my favorites, because it first introduced me to Hollywood — beautiful, romantic, very graceful, and elegant. I would like to remake it — I hope some director can help me, maybe Steven Soderbergh or Wong Kar-Wai. [Laughs] What I remember about those old Hollywood films is that when a leading lady and a leading man meet, they don’t have to say anything; you already know they’re in love. You root for them; you want them to be together. That’s the magic of Hollywood. I think somehow today we’ve lost a little bit of it, and you don’t care as much if two characters get together. But Roman Holiday makes you smile, makes your heart smile, makes your heart sing for these two people. Gregory Peck is gentle and elegant, the kind of tall leading man that I like. I think we should remake the film. Everybody in America, in Asia, and in Europe, would appreciate it. The beautiful, pure, romantic story — I wish I would play a role like that, because I have a romantic soul. I’d like to bring that purity to the audience, to have their fantasy fulfilled."

"The critics and the public wanted the pathos of M. Hulot’s Holiday and Mon oncle. They got Playtime, a comedy entirely devoted to space, in which Tati, as Hulot, hovers at the periphery of his own creation and has the elegance, which very few comedians share, not to put the spotlight on his own mug. The public and the critics turned against Tati. They were of course wrong, and the film is one of those few that get better by the year. It’s a silent film with sound; its color scheme is in a narrow band between gray and blue that aggressively underscores the painterly logic of Tati’s conceit. The film gives itself the luxury to reinvent choreography and as such dazzles with the megalomania of its enterprise and the diabolical precision the filmmaker had to conjure up to pull it off. There is ultimately so much to see, so many discrete pockets of activities in such a large canvas, that Tati has ensured that his film can be revisited time and again and each time seem different and new. It is a monumental film, literally and figuratively, that in its humorous take on modernity retains a form of hope. Alienation, but alienation light, and still the hope that the strategic social planning of architects and designers has cracks and will allow folks to run for daylight for the reassertion of their humanity. And, yes, a detail: the exquisite quality of this transfer is one of the reasons we spend our allowance on votive candles for the altar of Our Little Lady of the Criterion Collection."