"It could be any Curtis Mayfield record, really. When I hear his voice, it just lifts me up. His music puts me in the space to create. It’s quite rare, that mix of fragility and toughness. It’s there from day one with a song like It’s Alright by the Impressions, and it’s there on his late music too, this incredible ability to sweeten the message with beautiful melodies. He’s a complete inspiration as a songwriter, musician and arranger. Curtis lives!"

"Quiet and gentle, in stark contrast to the ever-looming violence of The Wages of Fear, this human tone poem by Ermanno Olmi has the intimate lyricism of Truffaut layered with Italian neorealism. It is toward this latter strain that Olmi moved in his subsequent work, even to the extent of being his own (albeit mediocre) camera operator; for this film, the fluid camera of Lamberto Caimi creates a near dreamlike space while staying rooted in the details of daily life."

"Between 1971 and 1975, Robert Altman could do no wrong, and Nashville is the culmination of that streak. There had rarely been before him in Hollywood such a sense of liberty, of independence, of genuine spontaneity. The long takes, the tracking shots, the space he gives actors, the way he lets them overlap, the looseness and the depth of the narratives—it was a breath of fresh air in a usually stuffy and hostile environment. It didn’t last long, though."

"I turn to Babel for reassurance that literature is capable of showing the real and terrifying mayhem that results when national systems collapse, while still preserving some modicum of love for human beings. If I ever need my ear tuned, this is where I go. Babel is a particular master of that unnamed space between sentences; the place where, in my view, a piece’s real sensibility gets made: what does the writer omit, and how does he link his observations?"

"A late-night friend right up there with Cosmos and Hearts of Space. I’m sure I wouldn’t like this series as much without the Matt Dillon segment (episode three). The camaraderie in the other pieces is great, but the tension of that segment is built in real-time improvisation. The story unfolds right before you—one of the coolest, most magical feelings you can get. I still get really uncomfortable at the fish/trousers part in the Tom Waits episode, though."