"We see this same edge space in this film, especially in the sequence at the end . . . new buildings facing barren open space and roads leading nowhere. I saw this at the Cinémathèque française recently. I was a little late for the screening, so I had to sit in the front row, in front of the sixty-foot screen, in the main cinema. An intense experience to be totally dominated by the images of this film. The last shot of Monica Vitti, where she stares into the camera, actually pinned me to my seat!"

"This film is so well observed and humane, like all of Kore-eda’s work. I love how it presents a rather mundane premise—a routine family get-together—then gradually reveals the immense emotional complexity that exists beneath its surface. There is such intense subtext that accompanies every interaction between each member of this family; every tiny moment of casual cruelty and guarded warmth carries huge emotional power. It’s all so specific to Kore-eda and simultaneously totally universal. I feel like he’s one of the world’s greatest filmmakers. "

"In my teens I got to know García Lorca’s poems in Icelandic translations. I was instantly fascinated by their dramatic tales of tragic loves, their intense night visions and images of human and botanic flowers. Infused with a surrealist use of metaphor, folkloric energy derived from flamenco and the Arabic heritage of al-Andaluz, Lorca’s poems reach deep into the ancient origin of soul while flashing with modern wit and bravery. Wonders happen when the poet travels over the Atlantic and tests his poetic tools in the New World."

"A harrowing war film made with near-religious austerity. Most of the movie is comprised of two kinds of shots: these yawning, snow-swept vistas that swallow people whole, and unbearably intense close-ups of the human face. You get the sense that making The Ascent was an all-consuming endeavor for Larisa Shepitko. Which other filmmakers have so evidently given so much to their craft? That it’s her final film is a shame, but some of its power carries over into her husband Elem Klimov’s delirious masterpiece Come and See."

"I love Louis Malle’s films because he’s always inventive in his own way. He’s not trying to be anybody else or copy any kind of fashion; he’s trying to give us something he believes in. In The Fire Within you feel this French, fifties-sixties kind of atmosphere: there’s always piano music by Satie and this feeling of desire for something grander, more powerful, more passionate. I felt that way as a teenager and a younger adult, always thinking life was never as intense as I wished it could be."

"I’ve mixed colors, painted and drawn with many lines of Rilke’s poetry circulating in my head — lines like, “and there were even bits of eternity in my intestines,” from “The Song of the Suicide.” I’ve made several bodies of work in recent years thinking about visualizing the line, “And one sees to the bottom of time.” Rilke’s “The Book of Images” and “Duino Elegies” are great companions. It’s the visceral, intense and mysterious quality to his words that hang in the air around my studio. “To work is to live without dying” was Rilke’s motto."