Bruce Dern names the “best movie ever made”
After coming through the ranks at The Actors Studio in New York City, Bruce Dern began his ascendance to stardom and went on to become a significant player in the New Hollywood era of American cinema. His contributions to movies of the 1960s and 1970s have been well-recognised, and he remains a legend of the acting game.
Through the likes of They Shoot Horses, Don’t They, The Cowboys, Silent Running and The King of Marvin Gardens, Dern established himself as a prominent force in the film industry and has been awarded ‘Best Actor’ at the Cannes Film Festival. The Academy has also lauded Dern with nominations for his performances in Coming Home and Nebraska.
Dern once named the five performances that he feels he would have been unable to give, and in the process, he named the two movies that he considered “the best ever made”. The first is David Lean’s 1962 epic biopic, Lawrence of Arabia, starring Peter O’Toole and Alec Guinness, which tells of the British army officer and archaeologist T.E. Lawrence and his experiences in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.
“To me, the best movie ever made was Lawrence of Arabia because it’s perfect in every single category, from writing to acting,” Dern explained to A-Frame, expressing his love for the classic movie. “All my life, I’ve been fascinated, excuse the expression, by people that get shit done. The guy did that.”
The film Dern went into more detail on, though, was 1984’s Amadeus, directed by Milos Forman, another period biopic, this time, a fictionalised account of the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, starring Tom Hulce and the legendary classical music composer and F. Murray Abraham as his fictional rival Antonio Salieri.
It’s Abraham’s performance that really captivated Dern, with him noting, “I’ve watched Murray Abraham for a long time, but I’ve never seen him do that. I didn’t know who he was. Just the whole way he did it and allowing himself to look – you see the pockmarks, you see everything. One of the great scenes I have ever seen in my life is when he couldn’t keep up with Mozart when he’s dictating to Murray Abraham that great piece.”
Dern concluded: “Because he’s going fast. [Abraham as Salieri] said, ‘Slow down, slow down. You’re going too fast.’ Mozart says, ‘Now, you got all that. You got all that. And now the voices, 400 voices.’ And Murray Abraham looks like he had a heart attack. He’s saying, ‘But it’s not possible, the voices.’ That whole scene is one of the great scenes in the history of the theatre and movies.”
