Jacques Audiard

“[Translated] I prepared a little bit. Let's start with this one. Let's start with Lang. M by Fritz Lang. For me, Lang is synonymous with silent films, even though he continued far past that era, and I think that M is the first major talking picture. It has such a particular use of sound and music, and as with all of Lang films, incredibly dense images. In short, Fritz Lang is the master. I'll put this in my little shopping bag.”

“[Translated] Here we go. I just found Notorious. Hitchcock's Notorious, with Ingrid Bergman. For the lucky ones who haven't seen it yet... When you watch the scene with Grant and Bergman on the bench, or the kiss in the room, well, you can think of me! Aesthetically, it's simply splendid. The set design is exceptional, and it's all done with rear projection, which is extraordinary. Honestly, I just made a studio film and I thought a lot about Hitchcock. Two for two!”

“[Translated] L'Avventura, of course. Antonioni is... Well, this is pure modernity and in a way, he invented modernity for 1960s cinema, just as Godard also did, in his work. They're all worth rewatching: L'Avventura, L'Eclisse, and so on. They make you want to make films. I make films because others make them, otherwise I wouldn't be interested.”

“[Translated] What did I set up here? Oh yes, Tarkovsky. When I discovered Tarkovsky, I must have been... Fifteen. I was at the movies with my mom. The feel of the landscapes. The feel of the light. And of the faces, too. Mirror is very beautiful. The colors are magnificent.”

“[Translated] I don't know if people still talk about Robert Altman these days. For this film, he adapted Raymond Carver's short stories, and he did it so skillfully. His narratives are so free. They're almost like these surrealist, exquisite corpse exercises. It's very profound. It has Carver's depth and his levity. Very beautiful.”

“[Translated] Max Ophüls, of course. He was an incredible director. He did La ronde, Lola Montès... He had a genius for soft movement, this Viennese sensibility... There were other Viennese directors in Hollywood, but he was exceptional. La ronde is a series of sketches. Pay attention to the first one, in particular. It's incredible.”

“[Translated] I love Claude Sautet. Classe tous risques is a remarkable film. Claude's career took a big hit. It was a notorious flop. It took him five or six years to get over it. He had to go back to being a screenwriter. He had this expression: he said he wasn't a true screenwriter, but that his job was to re-sole scripts. Like a shoemaker. Classe tous risques is a very beautiful film.”

“[Translated] Now we're getting into the hard stuff. This is an era I like a lot, the very beginning of sound. Vampyr by Dreyer. An exceptional film. This inspired Bergman, all Nordic cinema. Especially Bergman. Wild Strawberries by Bergman, for example. Films like that. My friend Gaspar Noé shares my love for Vampyr... And silent films in general. Gaspar, if you're watching this: I'm thinking of you.”

“[Translated] This is my buddy Federico. La strada feels like a silent film, actually. It's a totally expressionist film. I vitelloni is the story of these young bourgeois idiots in small-town Italy. I think it's pretty autobiographical. Beautiful. Il Bidone, the story of a total failure. I think it ends in a garbage dump. I could go on... I was saying that Lang had these dense images... His framing... There's no room left in the frame. The frame closes in on the characters. Fellini is the opposite. There's this depth of field around them. That's the depth of life itself, and it's... It's devastating.”