"I wonder if a little kid is watching that movie, is it scary? Because when the kids get shot with the pie or whatever, they disappear, they don't come back, you're dead. I love the sound of all the songs, and the songwriting is amazing - it's just one of those perfect combinations of songwriting and production, and I think he sings all the songs. That's what gives the film its unique tone, because it could be this soupy Disney-style exploitation of the innocence of a child's voice, but it's this grown man, and you fully buy into the reality of the setting. Sure it's a send up of the Prohibition-era gangster genre but you can watch the scene of the guy singing 'Tomorrow' and start weeping - it's just so real. And you've got the little girl dancing around doing her ballet, it gives you shivers. And it's a very dark movie, it kind of looks like The Godfather, very darkly lit. Jodie Foster is amazing - she's like one of the best child actors of all time. I think that a great musical has its moments of hilarity and then also moments of deep sadness, pathos. I think we probably veered too far on the dark side with our musical."

"I can’t explain this movie. It’s just perfection. Sad and funny, light and heavy, full of boisterous color and nonstop singing. Probably the most romantic movie I have ever seen. Catherine Deneuve has never been so lovely. I have never been to France, but I imagine it is just like it is depicted here. Maybe I will never go so I can keep my fantasy and save myself from disappointment. Jacques Demy was a singular talent. There was never anyone like him and there never will be again. I highly recommend the entire box set of his work, but this one will always be my favorite. I remember seeing it on the big screen at the Music Box in Chicago in the early nineties and walking out on clouds while also being filled with an intense melancholy. I can’t think of a single other movie that makes me feel both of those things at the same time and has left those feelings lingering inside me twenty-plus years later. Michel Legrand’s score is, it goes without saying, iconic and magnificent. And what this movie lacks in dancing, Demy makes up for in his constant gliding camera movements. As if the dance is between the actors and his lens. Pure cinema. Perfection."