"I love all of Mike Leigh’s films but this is the one that had a big impact on me. Like all of films above, it beautifully combines comedy and drama. It was also a stylistic departure for Leigh, who still held on to the British social-realism vibe but delivered it in a very cinematic and calculated way. Also should be seen for Katrin Cartlidge who had a very bright but tragically short career."

"What can I say about this movie? One of the more influential films of my childhood, it is a heartbreaking and hilarious tale of a poor young schoolboy who poaches a kestrel as a pet. He has nothing in his life apart from the relationship with his bird. The realism may be the best I’ve witnessed. The lead performance is perfect on every note. I dream of being in a movie this good."

"The life of every individual, sayeth the sage, runs along the line created by the intersection of two planes: personality and social setting. I can’t think of any American novelist who ever drew that line more brilliantly than James T. Farrell in this trilogy. If this be “plodding realism,” let every American novelist start plodding Studs-style, lest the American novel fall down in a heap and die, as it now seems wont to do."

"Blanche Dubois says, “I don’t want realism, I want magic. Yes, Yes magic!” For me, that is the essence of Tennessee’s voice. We all long for magic, to leave our human shells for respite. That’s why I became an actor. But my favorite quote in all of literature is, “Sometimes—there’s God—so quickly.” To me that means a moment of grace comes when we least expect it, at the moment we need it the most."

"I love films that are great not only in themselves but in the idea of them that stays in memory. But this then can dwarf the actual film, which perhaps it has in the case of Black Orpheus—some aspects now try one’s patience slightly. A few years back a Brazilian film was touted as the realistic and gritty version of the story, by those who knew the actual milieu—another black eye for realism and grit."