"After spotting a then-unknown Delphine Seyrig in a New York theater production, director Alain Resnais cast her as the female lead of his superb and enigmatic meditation on time and memory, then enlisted Chanel to transform his ingenue into a star. The exquisite gowns she designed are integral to the film’s highly influential visual design, and Chanel and Seyrig began a long-lasting friendship, united by mutual respect and their devotion to the cause of women."

"I remember it as a strong anticolonialist film, with parallels with the American civil rights movement. In fact, a scene you won’t see in Medium Cool, of black militants going into a theater where The Battle of Algiers was playing, was deleted as a concession to Paramount’s concerns that it would provoke violence against Paramount executives. Paramount argued that if audience members came out of Medium Cool and committed a violent act, Paramount would be liable."

"This trilogy was rereleased at Film Forum in the summer of 2015, right before we started shooting Menashe. I went once a week and cried in the theater by myself. A universal story of birth, death, love, and coming of age. So many moments I can never forget: the joy of the school montage, and the famous scene in which the children see a train for the first time, a symbol of the arrival of modernity."

"This trilogy was rereleased at Film Forum in the summer of 2015, right before we started shooting Menashe. I went once a week and cried in the theater by myself. A universal story of birth, death, love, and coming of age. So many moments I can never forget: the joy of the school montage, and the famous scene in which the children see a train for the first time, a symbol of the arrival of modernity."

"Well, it was an actor playing Othello. It was written by Garson Kanin, who later married a teacher of mine, but he was married to Ruth Gordon, who was a favorite actress of mine. And it was a movie about the theater. I love those kinds of in-house things. I love political movies or plays, but especially plays about the inner workings of the business, or that give you insight into the process of what actors go through."

"Ja’Tovia, my be-all and end-all at the time, took me to see this in the theater. I didn’t know people could make movies that were art. So she started my career by taking me to this and then to Amélie not too long after that. I didn’t know that filmmakers were allowed to go off on tangents, and since I don’t think linearly, this introduced me to the idea that I had a place in cinema."

"For a period of time, I thought I might only make documentaries. Films like Gimme Shelter had a lot to do with this attitude. Why make narrative work when real life was so interesting? I loved the Maysles approach to filming; I loved the Rolling Stones during that period; I loved the controversy surrounding the film. It still kind of seems like the perfect movie. Anytime this is playing in the theater, I try to see it."