"Everything is wondrous about this film: the writing, the casting, the texture of the image, the framing, the rhythm of the editing, the music, the direction as a whole. The title, though, the result of a necessary deal with idiotic distributors who imposed it over the original Dear Martha . . . , is a miss. Inspired by a famous case, the film is the exact opposite of your garden-variety “true crime” potboiler. It is many things at the same time: a sublime love story (Marguerite Duras dixit); a poetic exploration of the suburban landscape (right up there with Robert Frank’s The Americans); a fierce indictment of late-fifties middle-class aspirations (the trick here being that the irredeemable heroes of this epic inspire more empathy in the viewer than their victims); a level-eyed look at the hard business of murder (no romantic choreography here, and a smack on the skull with a hammer will make you recoil in horror); and too many lessons in filmmaking to quote in these few lines. In short, this is one of the great American films of the last forty years. The astonishing (and scandalous) thing is that Leonard Kastle never went on to make another film. See the film, go to the bonus tracks and see Mr. Kastle speak: the intelligence, the humor, the clarity of the craft will leave you gasping. It is so good to hear someone who has the arrogance of his modesty."

"Alone in the Wilderness is weird. Somebody gave me this documentary years ago, and I put it in and I watched it about four times in a row. Nothing is really happening in it. This guy is just building a cabin in the woods and sort of narrating it. It’s a true story. It’s actual live footage, 16mm footage of him. I gave it to a buddy of mine and he said the same thing — he was like, “Yeah, I watched it like two or three times in a row.” Another buddy said the same thing. I don’t know what it is. It’s just this guy building this cabin in the woods. I feel like it’s this sort of dream that every guy — or man — has. to go out into the woods and build a cabin and live in the woods. This guy does it, and does it for 40 years, and finally comes down when he’s 80, in Alaska. He just makes it look so feasible or accomplishable that — I don’t know, you just kind of watch it and start dreaming that you could do it too, you know? I think that is what a lot of my buddies felt when I sent them the film. It’s just something I’ve been toying around with — making a movie about it — sort of similar to the events that took place in the documentary, but not."