"My favorite part of this novel is how the main character is so fixated on re-creating a very specific scene from his past, and he's not even sure why. It's an act of theater, and memory, and something powerfully unconscious — and we are witness to the process. He is a kind of inverted Proust, making the madeleine from scratch to evoke the thing you didn't know needed evoking."

"I came to Larisa Shepitko through reading about Elem Klimov after watching Come and See. When I saw that Criterion had put out two of her films through their Eclipse label, I snapped them up. These discs are probably my most prized in my collection. Watching The Ascent feels like being punched in the nose and rolled in the snow. I felt like I’d time traveled to the Second World War and was there as a silent witness."

"I came to Larisa Shepitko through reading about Elem Klimov after watching Come and See. When I saw that Criterion had put out two of her films through their Eclipse label, I snapped them up. These discs are probably my most prized in my collection. Watching The Ascent feels like being punched in the nose and rolled in the snow. I felt like I’d time traveled to the Second World War and was there as a silent witness."

"Another one of my five favorite films would be Gimme Shelter, by the Maysles brothers. I spent many years making documentary films between my first film and my second film, Blue Valentine, and I learned to really embrace, and be humbled by life, and by telling a story where you’re telling someone else’s story. And there’s something about the Maysles brothers, and especially that movie, where they were able to witness these moments. Especially with Gimme Shelter, you know, these moments of American history — this concert at Altamont that turned into kind of the bad trip of Woodstock. And I love how they frame it with the band, the Stones, watching the footage, watching their memories; this document, this witness to this incredible time in American life — and this crime, this real crime in America. Also, for nothing else than the moment where Mick Jagger has to watch Tina Turner. Again, like watching the Scorsese movie — and the Pasolini movie — their use of music, you know, is to watch a real rock and roll movie in the theater, with that sound. It’s great."