"…and it’s something that happens with Raging Bull, also. And Marty Scorsese’s notion of sound — the memory. Sound memory is so important in Raging Bull; when you see the scene where Robert De Niro shows Cathy Moriarty his father’s house and tells him about the bird — “It was a bird, it’s dead” — and what’s going on around in the street, and you realize how important sound is. The other thing is the acting: Joe Pesci and Robert are so great together. I mean, the hardest thing in the world to do is just shoot two people in a room. All these other things are very easy to do — you get 150 people, you turn your camera on, you create a situation and as long as nobody looks at the camera you can make them seem very real. [Two people in a room] is really difficult. If I think of Robert Duvall, say, talking to Al Pacino in The Godfather two, when Al says to him, “Well what’d you get my son for Christmas?” and he says, “I got him a little car,” and Robert Duvall puts his hand over the couch — these are gestures that people understand as human gestures and they bring you into the storytelling."

"I saw it when I was in college and I went back and saw it again, and then I went back and saw it again. It has all my favorite actors in it. Big as life, absolutely in their top form. It doesn’t get any better than that anywhere. I saw them up on the screen and I thought “I want to do that, that’s what I want to do.” That had a big impact on me when I was a kid, coming up. We learn these movies like old friends, they’re like songs that when you hear them enough you know every note and moment, you know when he’s going to look over and you expect the lines, you’re doing them along with the film. Brilliant, brilliant piece of filmmaking. On everybody’s part. Robert Duvall. Spectacular stuff — [Duvall has] forgotten more about acting than most of us will ever learn."

"Robert Altman really deserves his own number and section, so I am tying three of his films. He was one of the rare filmmakers experimenting with form within the Hollywood system. He infused his work with fluid zooms to easily enter in and out of spaces and made social interactions feel more organic. He also used sound in experimental ways, pushing the form with overlapping dialogue. It’s so impressive that a studio funded an entire film based on a fever dream he had, starring two of my favorite actresses, Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek."

"I’m going to go with To Kill a Mockingbird. Something about that film… Man, it’s hard to put in words, but there’s something very peaceful about that film. There’s something that is really… There’s such a strong sense of right and wrong in that film, but there’s something also that’s just reminiscent of childhood. I don’t know if that makes sense, but there’s just something very peaceful about that film that I love. Gregory Peck, his performance, he’s just so strong in that film. Also, seeing a young Robert Duvall is really strange. I love the overall message about the film. There’s just a strong sense of justice. I think that would be the best term I could use. I love that film."

"Having lost Robert Altman in 2006, it’s so moving to hear his commentary on this wild, dreamy movie. I saw this film in the theaters when it was released and always loved it. I don’t care what anyone says, Robert Altman has directed more interesting roles for women than just about any director alive or dead. On his commentary, Altman reveals how all Millie’s diary entries, the menus she makes up for her “dinner parties” (which she’s “famous for”), and even her eye makeup were created by actress Shelley Duvall herself. I could never get enough of Janice Rule, and seeing her in this movie, so beautiful and soulful, I get the same ache as when I see Warren Oates on-screen . . . knowing they’re gone and I will never get that chance to work with either one of them. So Janice Rule’s performance here is all the more precious to me. Sissy Spacek is able to go from completely naturalistic to totally surreal . . . and still hold her character—it’s amazing. She was very young and novice at the time, yet she completely pulls it off brilliantly."