Bret Easton Ellis’ favourite “guilty pleasure” movies
Through his striking novels, American author Bret Easton Ellis has often grappled with the American mythos while working with the foundations of serious philosophical thought. His books, especially American Psycho — which had its popularity immensely boosted by Mary Harron’s film adaptation starring Christian Bale — have transcended cultural barriers and have appealed to thousands of readers worldwide.
While Ellis has spoken about his favourite movies on multiple occasions, the author once revealed his preferred “guilty pleasure” viewings. In a piece published by Film Comment, Ellis cited lesser-appreciated works by acclaimed directors like Jonathan Demme and John Carpenter. He started his list with Steven Spielberg’s 1979 comedy 1941, insisting that the film represented the apotheosis of Spielberg’s creative genius.
Ellis wrote: “It was universally reviled, and it is a folly, but Spielberg’s visual genius is on full display. The movie was built on such a massive scale that its massiveness becomes part of the joke. It has an anarchic anything-for-a-laugh spirit and a rousing John Williams score, and it’s spectacularly, childishly beautiful, painted with Lite-Brite colours. No CGI, just old-school miniature sets with toy planes chasing each other above Hollywood Boulevard—thrilling.”
While reflecting on Woody Allen’s oeuvre, Ellis included Stardust Memories. The author explained: “Consistently funny and brooding, it might be the most interesting and nakedly revealing movie Woody Allen has ever made and the most shimmeringly beautiful: shot in black and white by Gordon Willis, it’s as visually stunning as Manhattan, even if it’s not as achieved as that 1979 masterpiece.”
The American Psycho writer also expressed his fondness for John Carpenter’s The Fog: “Compared to the ruthless simplicity of Halloween, The Fog is seriously dumb and overly elaborate hokum—yes, the plot involves a 100-year-old curse and killer ghost-leper-pirates bent on revenge (they even have glowing blood-red eyes). The script is barely serviceable. But thanks to Dean Cundey’s cinematography, it’s one of the most elegant-looking horror pictures ever made, with views of the Pacific from the lighthouse home of the KAB radio station (from where Adrienne Barbeau as DJ Stevie Wayne warns the townspeople about the fog) that are so intensely painterly they pop.”
Check out the list below.
Bret Easton Ellis’ favourite “guilty pleasure” movies
- 1941 (Steven Spielberg, 1979)
- Stardust Memories (Woody Allen, 1980)
- The Fog (John Carpenter, 1980)
- Something Wild (Jonathan Demme, 1986)
- Cruising (William Friedkin, 1980)
- Greenberg (Noah Baumbach, 2010)
In addition to the aforementioned works, Ellis’ selection contains a relatively recent work – Noah Baumbach’s 2010 comedy-drama Greenberg. Ben Stiller delivers a solid performance as Roger Greenberg, a man who develops a special relationship with his brother’s assistant after suffering a mental breakdown.
Ellis commented: “Noah Baumbach’s movie, with Roger at its centre, becomes the fullest expression of Gen-X despair in all of American cinema. The negative reception was another ominous reminder that audiences are unwilling to accept hard-to-like protagonists. Greenberg has the loose vibe of a classic Seventies movie and the same spiky casual dissatisfaction that runs through Shampoo, though Baumbach’s film doesn’t end in such elegiac defeat.”
