"When I was a kid, Midnight Cowboy was one of my favourite films. Especially the end of Midnight Cowboy, when Jon Voight is riding the bus to Miami. It has that thing again, the loneliness and idealism of the American life, the death of the dream, the bleak scenes. Fred Neil wrote the original song but Harry Nilsson’s version just brings it to life. It’s a song I find hard to be objective about, because it’s been my favourite song since I was a kid, ever since seeing the film. Harry Nilsson’s version has more of the bittersweet, longing feeling. It’s a great song in general, but I associate his version with a strong set of visuals, especially watching the film as a kid. The songs that have the most powerful emotional impact are the ones that surprise you. I’m not listening for artistic inspiration to make a record, but for the feeling. When I’m making a record I completely stop listening to music. When I’m gathering ideas, I can’t listen to music because I have too many other things in my head, I can’t listen to other people’s records. Maybe a bit of classical, but that’s really it. So with my favourite music, it’s not necessarily the ones that make you feel excited or hyper, it’s more the ones that get you in your chest or your stomach, the ones that get you in that way and are impossible to ignore. That’s what I would want people to feel with the songs that I’ve written."

"Virtuosic camera movements and demonstrations of technical originality, while impressive, can often do just as much to pull the viewer out of the experience as into it. One becomes absorbed by the mechanics on display, rather than gripped by the characters and their fates. In the case of “1917,” however, it is exactly the virtuosity of the filmmaking that makes the movie so exceptionally gripping. All of the cinematic elements, from the unique visuals to the rousing score, come together to give the audience a monumental, visceral sense of participation in the protagonists’ mission. As a viewer, I am intensely bound to the characters throughout the film. Their story is a relentless, brutal and violent experience — we’re in the foxholes, in the mud, with the corpses in the waterholes, running across rotting horse carcasses ­— and it all feels so real that you can smell the dead horses and burning houses. But amidst all the violence, there are small moments of kindness that moved me more than anything; moments that encapsulate humanity at its finest. The two soldiers in “1917” are far from classical heroes. They are afraid, confused and insecure. But their innocence, their love and their willingness to do the right thing, make them the most touching heroes I’ve seen in a long time. Watching “1917” is a weirdly humbling experience not because of its incredibly cinematic qualities, but because its portrayal of human dignity is so profound and moving. It keeps playing in the back of one’s mind, long after the projector turns off."