Barry Jenkins

“Love this movie, so glad it's in the collection, and I'm going to take this. I can hopefully get Andrew to sign it for me.”

“No, oh my God. All right, so I remember getting on eBay and ordering this because I felt like I had to see it. The fact that somebody had made something that was 10 hours, I was like, you can't make anything that's 10 hours.”

“So when I was in film school, this was the film. This was the thing you got together like on a Saturday afternoon, you know, you drank a few beers and you just watch this thing over and over again.”

“Yes, yes, yes. Where's the Ratcatcher DVD, by the way? The first Criterion Barry Jenkins ever owned was Ratcatcher. Blu-ray for this one, please. And this movie, and there's an interview with Lynne where she talks about blending actors and non-actors, and for the rest of my work, you know, which isn't a lot up until this point, but especially in Moonlight, you know, I still use some of the things Lynne talks about.”

“So, George Washington is the second Criterion I ever owned, which pretty much is just because I was in film school making shorts about young black people, and I remember, A, not realizing David Gordon Green was a white dude when I first saw the film. I remember looking at the supplements on this and realizing, oh, David Gordon Green's a white dude. And there's actually a featurette on this where there's like a deleted scene of all these people sitting around in a circle having a conversation, and in my first film, Medicine for Melancholy, we actually replicated that scene where people sitting around in a circle.”

“I will take this because I don't own it, and out of respect for the form, you know. I mean, I've seen this too many times to recount, but out of respect for the form, I can never see it too many times, so I must take this, and it's free.”

“Okay, I'm going to take this because how can I not?”

“Okay, I'm only taking one more.”

“I saw this at the Berkeley Film Archive. I mean, I can't even describe how good this series is.”

“What? Foundational, found, foundational, foundational. Talk about empathy, you know, both in the film, but also just having empathy for the actors and what they're going through. Like, like, there's a film school in this box set.”