"This movie always makes me feel like the devout altar boy I once was. With due respect to Willem Dafoe or Jeffrey Hunter, Christ was never as movingly portrayed as he was by Bresson’s donkey."

"There was a movie called Animal Factory; it was [written] by Eddie Bunker, and it was directed by Steve Buscemi. It’s probably the best prison movie that’s ever been made. It’s unbelievable. I actually helped produce that. Eddie had the script, was running around with it for a while, and then gave it to me and said, “See what you can do with it.” I remember handing it to Steve Buscemi on Con Air, and I said, “Here, Steve. Read this or I’ll kill you.” [laughs] And he read it. He loved it, but he said, “Danny, there’s nothing really in it for me,” and I said, “No, no, no, we want you to direct it.” So he got Willem Dafoe, and when he got Willem Dafoe, everybody else kind of jumped on it."

"I shamefully saw this study in maritime lunacy on one of those industry links that emit noxious gas from your computer if you dare to forward to anyone. I was about to do a joint interview with Robert Eggers for MovieMaker magazine, hence the link, and was pretty excited given how much I loved “The Witch.” “The Lighthouse” is unlike anything I’ve seen. Willem Dafoe reminded me a lot of a security guard I worked with at Trollope & Colls joinery in Reading many moons ago. It was that look in the eye from someone who saw too much of what was in their head. That’s something I instantly recognized and it brought me right back to the gates of that joinery. There were too many similarities — the pride in the job, the obsessive attention to detail, the authoritarian streak and the delusion. I got to reimagine my days archiving a room of architect’s drawings in a joinery as being stuck in a lighthouse with a flatulent Willem Dafoe. I adored the dialogue and I could listen to Dafoe and Pattinson endlessly if Mr. Eggers ever did any radio play spin-offs. There are elements of Harold Pinter and Herman Melville amongst a host of other touchstones I probably missed, but it’s a film steeped in its own logic. Its saline black & white photography is also moody enough to probably tempt Béla Tarr out of retirement."