Cinematic Arias

As I prepare to direct my thesis film, I find myself reading many books about filmmaking (often 2-3 at a time). One of the first ones I finished was Laurent Tirard’s MOVIEMAKERS’ MASTER CLASS. It’s a fantastic collection of interviews with Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar, Bernardo Bertolucci, Tim Burton, John Boorman, The Coen Brothers, David Cronenberg, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Takeshi Kitano (want to test your Japanese?), Emir Kusturica, David Lynch, Sydney Pollack, Claude Sautet, Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Lars Von Trier, Wim Winders, Wong Kar-Wai and John Woo. I suggest you pick up this book; it’s a fun, fast read.

In the book, these gentlemen mention many of their influences (I think Kurosawa received the most nods) but few spoke of a particular film. Even more interesting was that only three films were mentioned by two or more filmmakers. Here are those movies (and their original European posters).

Both Bernardo Bertolucci and Emir Kusturica gush over Jean Renoir’s RULES OF THE GAME. Bertolucci claims this film “attains the goal that every film should strive for: transporting us to a different place” while Emir calls this movie “cinema’s greatest masterpiece in terms of direction.” Those are both bold claims but I will says this: after watching the film on DVD, I had to rewatch it two more times. There are many layers and so much depth to this film that it does belong in the pantheon of great cinematic works.

Scorsese says that “every frame of Francois Truffaut’s JULES AND JIM is filled with beautiful information” while John Woo simply calls it one of his all time favorite films. Shamefully, I’ve never seen this film. I know, I know. It’s going in my Netflix queue right now.

This film was also one of John Woo’s personal favorites. David Lynch admires Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2 for “it’s ability to communicate emotion through sheer magic.” I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Lynch (BTW, did I ever tell you that I met him at Astro Burger? he asked me “what looks good?” I told him I was having a bacon cheese burger.) regarding Fellini’s amazing movie. It’s such a rich film that I have to watch it over two nights.

A couple of tangents. First, I now have this image of John Woo and David Lynch sharing a popcorn while catching this film at The Egyptian. Second, while I don’t love everything John Woo has made, I’m reminded why he’ll always be more interesting than his action film directing contemporaries.

Lastly, the amazing folks at The Criterion Collection have all three masterworks available. Click on the artwork to learn more about the DVDs.

(On a side note, I love the clean, modern design of the Criterion DVD covers but I find the JULES AND JIM poster amazing)