In honor of her introduction to the collection, with An Angel at My Table, we asked director Jane Campion to contribute a list of Criterion films that are on her mind at the moment. Campion’s debut feature, Sweetie, is also available from Criterion.
“Firstly, thank you, Criterion. I am very moved to have An Angel at My Table included in the Criterion List,” wrote Campion in 2005. “There is not a film on the list that I have not either already seen or am eager to see and some to see again and again. But since you have asked me to talk about titles, I’ll tell you about some I have acquired and watched recently.”
#1 Seven SamuraiAkira Kurosawa I like to see this film once every few years. I love it for its balance of humor, drama, and its deep affection for our noble and flawed natures. When I remember the film I smile and enjoy very much the breadth of the characters, all the beautiful courageous, broken and romantic samurai. I too want to be one of those samurai, and I want to make such a strong and kind film.
#2 The Night PorterLiliana Cavani A film that made an enormous impression on me. Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling in a film of extraordinary psychological perversity and truth. A film that persuades me that our lives are not logical but poetic and allegorical.
#3 The Firemen’s BallMilos Forman This was a new film for me and one I had long read about. The film is apparently an allegory about communism in Czechoslovakia. It is very funny and charming, particularly the beauty competition, which is at the heart of the story, and the fantastic unwillingness of the contestants. Milos Forman’s account of the making of the film was extremely relevant.
#4 That Obscure Object of DesireLuis Buñuel Buñuel is my first deep love in cinema. He is the adult that pulled the plug on the human art of pretending. He blazes through the hypocrisy at the heart of our bourgeois lives mercilessly—no one is sacred, no ideal or moral is spared. He is perfectly modern, bold, and clear. I found myself laughing in joy and amazement. He understands human nature while refusing to sentimentalize it.
#5 ContemptJean-Luc Godard No one today is as modern as Godard. There has never been a more daring conceptual, chic, and irreverent filmmaker. In Contempt it is not posturing but a fascinating portrait of a marriage unraveling. Funny, chic, beautiful Brigitte Bardot (for god’s sake) and haunting.
#6 Tokyo StoryYasujiro Ozu I saw this film for the first time recently. It’s an amazing film, delicate, beautiful, and full of a complicated wise love, utterly itself.
#7 La stradaFederico Fellini Fellini is a deep, deep master of film. As time goes by I adore him more and more. La strada is quite perfect. It is like “The Ancient Mariner.” A haunting film for all time; one cannot insult innocence without a lifetime of cost. I don’t know why it is, but it is so, a spiritual truth, that both Coleridge and Fellini knew and tell in their respective stories. Fellini is the most fluent filmmaker of them all. His shots and storytelling are so at ease and elegant, it’s as if he’s thinking his shots through a camera in his mind and straight onto a screen. I went to his funeral in Rome in 1993, where people in the crammed huge Piazza Republica gathered to salute farewell. It was also a time when no one wanted to see a Fellini film. Every year since then his legacy appears more remarkable and more incomparable.
#8 Scenes from a MarriageIngmar Bergman A work I believe Bergman made for television, so it is perhaps not so well known. It goes very far into the riddle of marriage, the breakdown, pain, and passion. I’ve seen it three times already, and I want to watch it again with friends (most of us with one divorce under our belts!). The performances are stunning and the story surprises, touches, and absorbs me each time I see it.
#9 Samurai I: Musashi MiyamotoHiroshi Inagaki I didn’t know anything about this film; I decided to just try it. I loved it. An old-style movie, and Mifune’s wild-man performance gives it special stature. There are not many actors with his charisma, a true strength, and humor, vulnerability, and truth. The film is well told, strong, honest, and simply filmed. I found it refreshing to be reminded that these simple qualities made the film, now fifty years old, beautiful and alive to me; a classic just like you promised, Criterion.
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