All filmmakers search for cinema and discover it partially. Vigo is the embodiment of cinema. Watching his films you realize that he is much more than a director. He does not settle for simply fumbling along, he does not explore foreign land. He was born in his films. Thus for him, filmmaking is like breathing. He sees, he dreams, he thinks, he writes and he lives cinema. He is the result of thirty-five years of images. […] For the first time, the image is not what the eye sees, or what the lens sees, or what the lens records, but rather what would occur if the lens had its own life and brain. From there, comes this enchantment, this transfiguration, this perpetual discovery: the novelty A propos de Nice.

Henri Langlois, Trois cents ans de cinéma, Paris, Cahiers du Cinéma / Cinémathèque française / Fondation Européenne des Métiers de l’Image et du Son, 1986