The movers and shakers of Hollywood pick their favourite films - and describe what it is that makes them so special
* The Guardian,
* Friday April 2 2004
* Article history
Clare Danes : Do the Right Thing
This came out in 1989 when I was 10 years old. Although I didn't have the sophistication to fully understand, I did, having grown up in New York City, recognise the world Spike Lee had created. It felt true, important, even urgent to me then. When I rediscovered it at a film class in Yale, it had the same effect. We were lucky enough to watch it on a big screen and, when I left the theatre, I was shaking, my mind was spinning and racing, and I was overwhelmed with a myriad of competing feelings. I was profoundly inspired.
Its scope is enormous: it's comic, tragic, romantic, operatic and political. It's also a wake-up call. In the same way that Samuel Jackson's character, the local radio jockey, tells the area of Bed Stuyvesant to wake up in the opening line, Lee tells the audience to leave the warm, cosy shelter of denial and ignorance and confront the prejudice and intolerance we all carry. He exploits every opportunity to build conflict and tension.
He shows two brothers wrestling in a cramped closet arguing over family loyalty. He shows a teenage mother fighting with the father of her child about his failings as a parent. He shows a white cyclist getting accosted by a group of irate black kids after he accidentally left a smear on one of their friend's new Air Jordans. He shows three older black men fighting over where and when their powerlessness began.
Lee creates a frustratingly balanced portrayal of the inhabitants of this community and their values. He refuses to choose sides - every character, in their own way, is doing the right thing, all struggling to maintain the integrity of their diverse personal histories and identities, while sharing their lives on one New York City block. They've managed to do this pretty well until one July day melts their social etiquette and exposes their rage. This rage is ugly, base and frightening. It's also understandable, real and fair.
At first, I really wanted Lee to provide a resolution to all of the conflicts. I thank him for having the courage and intellectual honesty to withhold that easy ending and challenge my imagination instead.
Sofia Coppola : Darling
As a teenager I always loved this movie. It's Julie Christie's first film and she's great in it. The editing, the way the story is put together, the characters - it's really one of my favourites. And it has a great ending!
Neil LaBute : Manhattan
I can remember where I was when I first saw this - in high school in Washington. I went to see it with two teachers and it was a great experience. I remember reading the back of the video box later. It might have been Andrew Sarris who wrote: "This is the only truly great film of the 70s." It came out in 1979 so it just made the cut. Everything about it seemed perfect. I thought it was a terrific screenplay, understated in terms of the way it was shot.
I'm someone who made a couple of films without ever realising you could move the camera (I'm being slightly facetious, but I really had no interest in doing too much movement). There are some beautiful long takes, and everything is beautiful, from the acting to the directing - across the board. Poe talks about the unified effects in a short story; if that could apply to a film, it would be a film like this. How perfectly all of the elements are integrated.
It's been influential in a number of ways - just strictly as a fan, because I've certainly been that longer than a practitioner. When I was working on my second film (Your Friends & Neighbours), I was in Los Angeles and working with a group of people I didn't really know. I wanted to give them some sense of what we were shooting for, and I ran three films for them and said we're going to make a film that's not as good as any of these films, but my hope is to be shooting at least in that neighbourhood. The films were Godard's Contempt, Mike Nichols's Carnal Knowledge, and Manhattan. And I was right: I didn't make a film as good as any of those. But, again, that was what I was shooting for, and I said: "I know there's something good about this."
Spike Lee : Midnight Cowboy
Hollywood is very different today compared with 1969. It's very doubtful a film like this would get made now, because the motherfuckers - excuse me, the "gatekeepers", the people who OK which films get made - will come up with some marketing survey and say they don't believe audiences will go see a film like this. I know there's a thing about the "golden age of American cinema" around the 1970s. Some of that is hype, but a lot of that isn't. This is a great film. John Schlesinger's direction is great and this is the best performance by Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight. The music and the cinematography are great too.
Alan Cumming : Waiting for Guffman
This is a work of genius. I link it with my whole understanding of America. I saw it for the first time a couple of weeks after I came to live in America and I thought: "Oh my God, if this is being satirised, it truly must exist." So it kind of made me understand stuff about the country before I actually experienced it myself.
I've seen it maybe 30 times. I watch it once a month. It grows on you, which is what makes it a work of genius. It's hilarious but also touching. Christopher Guest has done such a great job - he makes you laugh at these ridiculous situations and people. But they are not so over the top that you don't feel for them. There's a part when Corky reads the letter from Mr Guffman and Parker Posey's character asks: "What does this mean, Corky?" Corky says: "We may be going to Broadway." It breaks my heart - he really thinks that's going to happen. There are two people in this film I would get starstruck by: Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy. I actually met Eugene Levy and gushed at him in a way that people sometimes gush at me!
Tim Robbins : Paths of Glory
You can't help but go out of this film thinking it's one of the best you've seen. What's especially dynamic is the combination of Kubrick and his screenwriter Jim Thompson, a great noir novelist who wrote The Grifters and The Killing. His writing style is as evident as Kubrick's visual and directing style. The combination is very cool. There's a great performance by Kirk Douglas and all of the cast. And, at the end, there's a woman who sings a song - and she became Kubrick's wife.
Benicio Del Toro : Badlands
This might be the best road movie ever made. It was Terrence Malick's first film, and it's a simple story. I would say that it's flawless. You could say Citizen Kane is the best first film ever, but I can put this right up against it. It incorporates great music, great imagery, great poetry. When I think of directing, this is one of the films that I go back to. It's always an inspiration.
Rosie Perez : The Party
I'm afraid everyone will think: "Oh my God, Rosie is such a fucking pothead, she picked The Party!" But it is comic genius. Peter Sellers's ability to be a clueless character, and never give away that he knows the joke is occurring, makes for brilliant comedy. I always look to the genius of Peter Sellers for inspiration. He never "acted" funny, he just was funny. I first watched the film prior to being in the movie industry. I was actually supposed to be a biochemistry major, thank you very much.
Parker Posey : Harold and Maude
I saw this when I was 18. It's a very human story and made me really interested in Hal Ashby, who didn't start directing films until he was 40. He grew up in Utah and his father killed himself and he witnessed it. In the 1960s, he moved to Los Angeles and went to the unemployment office, wanting to know if he could get a job in film. He got work as a mimeographer at Universal and started editing for Norman Jewison. There was a film Norman was working on and he couldn't do it, so Ashby stepped in and directed. He went on to direct Being There, with Peter Sellers, also one of my favourites. Harold and Maude is a cult classic. It is so much about love and living your life and not conforming to the norm. A beautiful movie.
John Turturro : Miracle in Milan
The writer Zavattini inspired the whole neo-realism movement. Many of the films made in Italy after the second world war, when they had no film industry as there was no money to support it, were of this genre. Zavattini was a great writer: John Cassavetes actually said that, in his opinion, he was the greatest screenwriter ever. This story is based on a book of Zavattini's: Toto Il Buono.
I'm also a big fan of Vittorio de Sica. He started out as a matinee idol and an actor. Then, as an actor and a director, he started to get into this whole genre, which was sort of essential when there wasn't really an industry. A couple of years later he made Bicycle Thieves and then Miracle in Milan. He wanted to do something with fantasy, and this film is the combination of a realistic fable. I think it's beautiful. He is a master, a marvellous director with a wonderful touch.
Chloe Sevigny : America America
This is by the great Elia Kazan. It's adapted from a novel he wrote about his uncle's journey to America and it's a perfect film!
Stanley Tucci : Day for Night
This film is nothing but truthful and elegant in its sincerity, but without sentimentality. It celebrates the creative process, and is a movie I wish I had made. It reinspires me and my love of cinema. I don't know of any other movie as good. It's delicate, poignant and incredibly personal; but it's not really just about making movies - it's about communication and humanity.
· Taken from Grand Classics America. Grand Classics London is sponsored by Sky Movies
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