It’s like that with celebrities. Or at least it was with Claudia, Omar, Romy, Geraldine, even Alain. They all had a sixth sense, an understanding that the outside—their appearances and their images—belonged as much to the public as it did to them.

How vividly I remember the hushed anticipation, the lights turned down low, and the clickety-clack of the old dual projectors whirring into action. And then, as if by magic, the screen would transform into an open window, a portal through which I could slip away and escape Madison completely.

“The experience of a novel depends on the reader, who that person is and what they imagine in their mind. But the experience of a film depends on the director. Nothing is left to the viewer, and so a director must be intransigent.”

Beginnings, like endings, are slippery. Because everything exists in the middle. There was something before, and there will be something after.

One’s whole life is spent studying the world, intently searching its patterns for the slightest flicker of meaning. Most of the time there is nothing, only accident and chaos. But now and then the presence of meaning is undeniable. It becomes a real thing—dimensional, measurable, indisputable.

the center of this conversation was the French New Wave, a movement that rejected convention by reimagining cinema not as a product for mass consumption but as a vessel for personal expression.

And I’ve thought that maybe it’s an important distinction: a man learns to know himself—what he wants and what interests him—and from this knowledge his power is sourced. But a woman learns to understand herself—what and why something is wanted from or of her—and from this understanding her power is sourced. Maybe one knows and the other understand

As I brushed my teeth, I caught a glimpse of my reflection, but I didn’t recognize the face looking back at me. The joy was missing from the eyes, and the smile that was always there had been replaced by a line of such sorrow that I couldn’t stand to look at it. How dangerous it is to be alone with shame.

The effect on me was immense. What happens in the body during times like this? What is it that was dormant and that comes to life? I’d seen a thousand movies, but it was in witnessing the making of one that I discovered what I wanted for my future.