"I can’t believe how the genius of Sacha Guitry is misunderstood outside the borders of France. He is actually one of the most important figures in the history of French cinema, on a par with the greatest. I suspect he has this marginal status because when he started making films—the minute you could record sound—he was already a middle-aged ultra-recognized, ultra-successful figure of the stage. His style owes nothing to the silent era; he is the first French filmmaker, in a long line, who relies on language. But he was of course never content to simply record his own plays; he was obsessed with using the specificities of cinema to transcend them, and in doing so he pioneered a whole new language. Inspired by his wives—first Jacqueline Delubac, then Geneviève Guitry, then Lana Marconi, who most often had the lead—Guitry was the first French writer/director, and possibly the greatest. Désiré is a remarkable film. I wish Criterion would release Le comédien, a portrait of his father, the famous actor Lucien Guitry, and my personal favorite. Another misunderstood French director is Georges Franju, who’s mostly known for Eyes Without a Face but actually the author of a very consistent body of work, including Judex, a quietly disturbing poetic adaptation of Louis Feuillade’s serial."

"My second film is an Israeli film called “The Kindergarten Teacher.” It’s a story about a kindergarten teacher, a woman who discovers that one of her young students, this cherubic little 5-year-old boy, is a poetic prodigy. The movie is, on one level, a kind of a psychological thriller, and a very disturbing one, about her growing obsession with this boy. And her sense that it’s her mission to save him from a society that isn’t gonna care about him. It also works, though, as a critique of that society; Israel, in the director’s view, has abandoned its cultural heritage, its commitment to art, and has become a materialistic and shallow society. The filmmaking was so simple and clear, and it was a very suspenseful movie. I was sort of frustrated because it had a very small release in the United States. It didn’t have Juliette Binoche in it [laughs], so it was not even on the radar, necessarily, of people who go and see movies with subtitles. And yet, it’s very entertaining. But also with this theme: “Why is poetry important? What are the values of a society that kind of push it to the side or don’t take it seriously? And how do you counteract that?” It’s just a very rich movie that I wish more people had seen."

"This is not the sexy sounding Iggy like on Lust For Life. It’s not blown out and swinging all over the place. It’s real dry and angular and square to an almost suffocating degree. It’s strong and Iggy’s poetry is strong. It feels authentic. Once you get over that, it doesn’t sound like it was recorded at the most hip studio and that it’s smaller sounding, you can appreciate the production that is there and the performances that are there. It’s not trying to rip your head off. Lust For Life had a certain vibe as did The Idiot. They weren’t hi-fi but they packed a wallop. New Values is tight and restrained. It’s not going to fucking cum all over you. There’s no orgasm there. It’s slow methodical masturbation, coming from Iggy who is very Little Richard in his sexuality. [Black impersonates Iggy singing: “I’m not going to go any more, any more, any more.""] There’s honest admission of frailties and the human condition. It is saying, “I am the lamest, I am the shortest."" It’s still bravado and fuck you, get out of my way, it’s not just saying I want to fuck you either. He’s trying to say some stuff. It’s not diary rock. When Iggy gets poetic, he’s the best Iggy."