"One has to love a film that has for its subtitle An Introduction to Anthropology. This hardscrabble tale of two blockheads dedicated to making a yen in the flesh trade is the most congruent homage to Laurel and Hardy one could dream of. Everything falls apart around them, but they keep forging on. The film does, too, ratcheting up craziness along the way: a carp in a fish tank—the reincarnation of a deceased husband—somersaults to show its disapproval of the widow’s sexual antics with her new beau; a depressed middle-aged woman jumps on the windowsill of her hospital room and masturbates, to the great joy of a crowd of workers that seems to have just exited the Lumière factory; a crumpled pornographer indulges in a bit of voyeurism that turns into a lesson in the use of angles in cinema, etc., etc.; and finally an ending in the waters off Osaka’s harbor that leaves one howling with laughter. All of it is filmed with an aggressive, unrelenting elegance that puts the viewer through rigorous ocular gymnastics. If you thought that Ozu was the alpha and the omega of the visual possibilities offered by Japanese home architecture, Imamura’s truculent epic will open your eyes anew."

"It’s so epic and so well-acted, it’s got a literary lineage, and it’s just amazing. I was a fan of all the music, and it’s so well-used in the picture. I was always intrigued and fascinated by the Vietnam war and this made me feel like I was there. I was surprised by so many things about the reality of war. When Martin Sheen’s character is going up the river and he goes to this one place where they’re blowing up a bridge everyday and he says, “Where’s your CO,” and he says, “Ain’t you him?” and I was just like, “Oh shit.” And the other thing that still stays with me today, the way the character acted — the helicopter pilot that’s going down — he says “Mayday Mayday, we’re going down.” He doesn’t overdo it; he gives information that’s necessary for other people to hear, and so for me that was a big acting lesson. I didn’t know it at the time. Any other actor — he may have been a real pilot — any other actor would have chewed that up, screaming, “Mayday,” but a real pilot has to convey information to the tower. He goes, “I’m in trouble, I’m in trouble,” and that’s it."

"This 1948 film is a classic Italian neorealist film that takes place in post–World War II Italy. It is a beautifully told and photographed story about a close relationship between a father, Antonio, and his young son, Bruno, who idolizes his father. As the story opens, Antonio is desperately searching for work and finally gets a job posting signs. In order to do this job, he must have a bicycle. His wife, Maria, pawns her wedding sheets to buy him a bicycle, but it is stolen on the first day of his new job. The rest of the film, father and son pursue the thieves to get the bicycle back. They fail. In the end, Antonio is forced to steal a bicycle so he will not lose his job. Bruno witnesses this and Antonio is humiliated in front of his son. For me, the film was about the ultimate and heartbreaking betrayal of trust between a father and his son. I’ve always photographed families and family relationships. This wonderful film encouraged me to look beyond the surface and find the real relationships that exist between family members. The epic quality of the film was a great inspiration for me."

"Beastie Boys and David Bowie are two of my favorite artists. The David Bowie album I am going to choose is Scary Monsters, which is kind of different. He always reinvented himself and he was doing something in the 1980s with Scary Monsters that nobody was doing. You can kind of hear stuff on that album that a lot of groups are doing now like, 'Aw, yeah I know where you got that from. That’s off that album.' It’s not one of his most popular albums to everybody, but I think it’s my favorite. There was a song on that, ‘Teenage Wildlife,’ and if you don’t like that, we don’t have to associate with each other. If you don’t get that song—it's cool man, I’ll see you around. “‘Teenage Wildlife’ is just epic. It’s like five or six minutes long and it kind of crescendos and builds into this insane vocal of Bowie wailing. I think I would pay $5,000 dollars to see footage of that recording session. I don’t know how he hits the notes that he’s doing and how long he does it but he’s just belting it out. You know he was feeling something when he was doing it. It’s just a cool song."

"Yes, there was quite a controversy kicked up last year over the restoration. And while it’s not an uninteresting issue, it doesn’t distract from the gratitude we who hold Fassbinder dear feel when we hold this handsome box in our hands. This is the epic he was racing against destiny to complete; poring over the extras, you can’t help but sense that he knew it too. All of Fassbinder’s period pieces are, of course, about the Germany he lived in, the Germany I would begin visiting regularly just a few years after he’d gone, a Germany at ferocious odds with itself, arguing in the streets and in the papers and in classrooms and over dinner over what sort of country it’d make of itself, even in those later stages of starting all over again—not too long, of course, before starting all over yet again in 1989. An intense love-hate relationship with the German character, with German history and culture, and an ongoing recognition of the inextricability of the personal and the political, for better and for worse, permeate all of Fassbinder’s work; here, all that’s practically on parade. And the fireworks at the end are gruesome and gripping."