Alexander Payne

“I have a friend, my buddy Nate Goodman studied semiotics at Brown, and he's like, "Have you re-seen Salò since Trump has been president?" "I don't know." He goes, "You have to totally re-see Salò since Trump became president." So I will look at Salò again.”

“I was at a presentation of Ace in the Hole on the Paramount lot about two years ago and they trotted out old Kirk Douglas for it, and I got to shake Kirk Douglas's hand after seeing Ace in the Hole again. But I don't have this. I'll take Ace in the Hole, an obvious choice.”

“But you know, the thing about being in the Criterion closet is you have to cop to the great classics you've never seen. I've never seen 3 Women.”

“Somebody actually had the guts to tell me the other day that L'avventura was dated. I was like, "You're out of your mind. It'll always be fresh." Plus the music, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo.”

“Oh, Le Plaisir. You know, I've only seen, I saw it once projected, but it's been a nice one to study again.”

“¡Alambrista! Very underappreciated, underseen film. Robert Young, Irwin Young's brother. Irwin Young who had DuArt, his brother was a documentarian and made some wonderful feature films. Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, which I think is being restored now, but ¡Alambrista! Is one of the early outstanding movies about immigration.”

“The Breaking Point is one that I have to take credit for, for bringing to the Criterion Collection's attention. I programmed it at Telluride in 2009. And in 1950, Michael Curtiz made three, count 'em, three films for Warner Brothers and producer Jerry Wald, and all of them shot by Ted McCord, the great DP Ted McCord, who previously had done, for example, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, later shot The Sound of Music, if you can believe it. And this is arguably—well, I won't argue, I just think it's true—the finest adaptation of Hemingway's To Have and Have Not. Pretty amazing film.”

“Speedy. Wonderful to see New York as interpreted by Nebraska's Harold Lloyd.”

“Red Beard. Incredible. I went for years, my favorite Kurosawa is, of course, Seven Samurai, but the one that sticks with me more as I age is Red Beard.”

“You know this? This is an extraordinary film, Una giornata particolare. Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni at the height of their powers. An extraordinary film. I love the scene when they have, they fight on the roof of the building with the sheets billowing and then he follows her downstairs.”

“El verdugo. Okay, another film I am happy to take credit for, for bringing to the attention of the Criterion Collection. Berlanga. So in Spain in the '50s and '60s, they were doing really brutal comedies and in their own kind of, their own tradition of what Italy was doing with comedy, but it had that black humor, that acid humor that Spain has. Anyway, hilarious movie.”