"I return to Polanski’s early films to get excited about blocking and also adjusting the camera in relation to blocking. He’s the master of the camera adjustment. I’ve learned so much about directing from watching his films. Cul-de-sac is like his existential Beckett movie, and it draws a lot from absurd theater. Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby play with genre so brilliantly, upending conventions while honoring them. Macbeth always struck me as one of his masterpieces, and it’s clearly haunted by the Manson murders in a very visceral way."

"My introduction to Cassvettes. It’s an opus. I liked it but I did not love it the first time I saw it. The movie takes patience but then you realize that’s the genius of it, the imitative way it puts the audience in a kind of narrative stupor. And once you’re there, it runs you through every emotion. So good luck with that. Also, Gena Rowlands is a goddess who walks among us. Of all the tributes to Cassavetes, this is surely the most minor but . . . my cat is named Mabel. Similar behavior."

"If you’re forced to pick a sixties Godard, you do it without worry and with as much Godardian esprit, whimsy, impulse, and movie love as you can, and no one’s choice can be better or worse than anyone else’s. I can’t say exactly why this one is my favorite—it’s a vacation travelogue amid genial diatribes and ironic pastiches, four-dimensional masterpieces all—but I can say that when I interviewed Anna Karina (who is very tall, by the way), she guessed that it was, and she also kissed me."

"This is a singular movie—it’s not something that can be reproduced or that will ever be made again. It’s particular and brave, and on paper, it almost seems like it wouldn’t work. But it does because of the way it’s edited and the span of time it covers and the way Kirsten Johnson decided to be open enough to reveal her own experiences. It’s so engaging and mysterious to me. I remember just feeling so shocked at how touching it was, and also how humane. You just feel her love for the work that she does and her love for people. It’s also a great document of the fact that there are other people who work on movies besides directors."