Billy Bob Thornton names cinema’s only “perfect” movie: “It has every element”
Cinematic perfection is arguably an impossible achievement, although Billy Bob Thornton would disagree, considering there’s one movie he believes is flawless in every single way.
Any film that’s generally considered one of, if not the, greatest ever made, whether it’s Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, the first two instalments in Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather trilogy, Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption, or any of the other usual suspects, has at least one detractor.
Plenty of pictures come close, but in reality, there is no such thing as a genuinely universally beloved movie. For every 999 people who’ll die on the hill that a certain title is comprised entirely of strengths with no weaknesses whatsoever, there will always be that dissenting voice in the corner that disagrees.
That’s the art form in a nutshell: the absolute truth doesn’t exist when every single feature that’s ever existed has the potential to be viewed as either the best or worst an individual has ever seen, depending on their personal preferences, mindset, and the circumstances under which they watch it for the first time.
As far as Thornton is concerned, though, nothing will ever come close to Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon. He’s even worked his lifelong love of the film into his career, because it’s not a coincidence that the only thing he’s directed since 2012, and the only episode of TV he’s ever helmed, was rife with references.
In the Goliath episode ‘Hadleyville,’ the actor’s jobbing lawyer Billy McBride finds himself caught in a dream sequence lifted from High Noon, with the title coming from the name of the town where Gary Cooper’s seminal western unfolds.
It’s no secret that the Academy Award winner has been obsessed with the ‘Best Picture’ winner for as long as he can remember, and he neatly summed up his feelings on the flick when he told Rolling Stone that “it’s the perfect movie.” No ifs, no buts; that’s the hill he’s willing to die on, and has been for some time.
What makes it perfect, from Thornton’s perspective, is that it provides everything anyone ever needed from a film: “It deals with joy and sadness, infidelity and faithfulness, cowardice and bravery,” he explained. “So it has every element of what humans go through. It’s all about, at the end of the day, who you can count on.”
As mentioned, there isn’t a right or wrong answer for what constitutes the perfect movie. For all anybody knows, there might even be someone out there who holds Air Bud in similar esteem. Hopefully not, but the endless debates that have swirled around cinema since the dawn of the moving image aren’t going to end because there’s no definitive answer to any conversation that tries to pit one against the other.
What can’t be denied is that High Noon is a stone-cold classic and one of the finest examples of its chosen genre. Is it perfect? Thornton is adamant that it is, and plenty of folks would agree with him, and he’s far too long in the tooth to change his mind.
