Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Rublev by Andrei Tarkovsky
After I watched those films I was deeply interested with cinema as a supreme art form.
BARRY LYNDON
L’AVVENTURA
Scorsese was the first director that expanded my understanding of cinema’s form — Taxi Driver specifically. Years later, Kieslowski’s Three Colors trilogy and Tarkovsky’s book Sculpting in Time simultaneously expanded my understanding for the potential of cinema’s content.
When I was about twelve I saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind on tv and for some reason it opened up cinema for me, then Blue Velvet sealed the deal. For like a year after watching Blue Velvet I kept asking myself “how did he do that?”
Then a teenager, these two utterly changed the way I watched and understood movies: Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Donald Cammell and Nic Roeg, Performance (1970)
“Stardust Memories” when I was 14. Fellini was a treat after watching that.
I was really young when I started watching Twin Peaks on tv with my folks, I liked it so much that I took note of people in it & names in the credits—from there it led to an age inappropriate viewing of Blue Velvet and I was done, I was hooked on cinema.
Definetly Wes Anderson flicks.
And Breathless. I loved Breathless.
Blah. Double Post.
Rumble Fish by Coppola. That film came out when I was first leaving home (moving from Tennessee to California). It had a deep impact on me. Still love that movie.
“The Last Laugh” by F.W. Murnau really amazed me. A late-ish silent movie that truly shows how some directors and actors (Emil Jannings) had mastered the medium at this point in time and could convey any impression through light and expressions. Great expressionistic settings also. Orig. title is “Der Letzte Mann” (The Last Man) but I’ve seen it referred to as “Hotel Atlantic” also.
I don’t think I have been the same since I saw “Batman” in 89’ when I was only two years old. “Jurassic Park” consumed me into the realm of cinema. I don’t exactly know what film switched me over from popcorn flare to basic instructions to understanding the language of film, but “Requiem for a Dream” teamed with “8 1/2” rocked my socks. Then came “In the Mood for Love” and Kubrick; and now I’m fucked.
I hate how people don’t get Ran (for example) I hate having to explain Japanese film, their emphasis and use of empty space (panning out to the clouds, expression on the kings face changes during scenes) and over the top characters.
The films that really got to me were Nosferatu, Ran and 39 Steps (My parents love Hitchcock)
Chasing Amy
Blind Chance by Kieslowski. After that cinema and life were never the same again.
When I was eight years old I went to the neighborhood theater by myself and saw “Strangers on a Train.” While I did not fully understand the story, once I experienced the visual impact of the scenes movies were never the same for me.
La Jetée for sure haunts me. Cronenberg’s crash awakes me. Heaven’s gate filled me. Profondo Rosso is following me. A man escaped has blinded me. Bluebeard’s eighth wife ravished me. the Party and Playtime make me smile the whole day. WAges of fear for the shivering. Barry Lyndon for the obviousness. Some many more for any reason I can find, anf those that I have not seen for the surprise they will give me.
2001: A Space Odyssey
GoodFellas
The Seventh Seal
“lars and the real girl” cemented my desire to make movies.
For most of my childhood, all I watched was Schwarzenegger shoot-em-ups and slasher films. But when I was about 14 or 15, I found myself in the video store, trying to decide between ‘Goodfellas’ and an ‘erotic thriller’ (basically a polite term for soft-core porn). Anyway, I picked up Goodfellas and I guess you could say that I’ve never watched movies the same away since. I emersed myself in gangster films after that, eventually branching out into contemporary classics, then to classic-classics (A Personal Journey w/ Martin Scorsese was particularly influencial on me at this time), then to foreign films (I’m especially fond of the French New Wave), and I’m to the point now where I watch basically everything. In the past few years, I’ve actually come to loathe most actions movies, though horror films are still a guilty pleasure.
Weekend by Godard, that film was the catalyst for me to delve deeper into ‘Godardian Cinema’ and i’ve been enamoured and obsessed ever since with the man.
Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey flipped me out. I saw it when I was 15 at a party the night of New Year’s 2001. After it was done I closed the door and watched it again. They were playing it all day and all night and the party was super boring and man did I love that movie. It obsessed me with its compositions and arrangements and opened my ears to the way sound makes cinema brilliant. This was before I used words like cinema anyway.
At 17 Van Sant’s Elephant changed the way I saw story and character and everything papa Spielberg had taught me with his films. I think this is when I felt comfortable with the lofty notion of being a film director. I thought, hey, you can make stories about anything really and as long as you have the skill and the eye for it you can make a whole movie out of a still photograph.
“The Hours” (2002). It was wierd because until then, I didn’t know I could truly and deeply relate to a film (and it was about women, 2 of which were from the 20’s and 50’s). The score, performances, and direction were just cherries on top. Also Persona by Bergman.
I was really young when I started watching Twin Peaks on tv with my folks, I liked it so much that I took note of people in it & names in the credits—from there it led to an age inappropriate viewing of Blue Velvet and I was done, I was hooked on cinema.
Charlotte, my aunt not only let me, but suggested(!), I watch Blue Velvet when I was nine or ten. She just put it in the VCR for me and went in the other room and talked with my mom for two hours. She is awesome.
I’ve noticed that my answer to a lot of these questions is the same, but I still have to go with Breathless. I was completely floored the first time I saw it.
“My Dinner With Andre”. Louis Malle, Andre Gregory, and Wallace Shawn showed how drama, suspense, humor, and emotion can be portrayed through well-written dialogue.
Again, I have read this answer a few times and it seems to be a bit of a popular answer, but when I first saw A Bout de Souffle or Breathless, my view of the cinema COMPLETELY changed, and I followed it quickly with the 400 Blows which just solidified the epiphany which Breathless had sparked. Also some other key films which have completely rocked my world: Edward Scissorhands, Cannibal Holocaust, Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, Les Enfants Terribles, Gespenster, Daisies, 28 Days Later, Cries and Whispers, Metropolis, Naked Lunch, A Trip to the Moon (Melies), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and The Man with the Movie Camera… The list could literally go on forever… I am constantly floored by film and this is just a partial list which will always grow!
Sonja
taxi driver and romper stomper. hehe