Denis Villeneuve names the four greatest shots of the 21st century: “Apples and oranges”
Denis Villeneuve‘s rise, from obscure French-language filmmaker to Tinseltown darling, has seen him emerge as one of the finest filmmakers of his age. A uniquely positioned director who is able to balance huge ideas with box office success.
Villeneuve always makes sure his films look great. From the gorgeous vistas of Arrakis in the ‘Dune’ franchise to the dark interior of the alien spacecraft in Arrival, his work is always a treat for the eyes, a push for the intellect and a delightful engagement with full character arcs. He’s always been a fan of visually-stunning films, as evidenced by his love of Blade Runner, a film he would get the chance to make an equally beautiful sequel to over three decades later.
For a feature for The New York Times, Villeneuve was asked to name his six favourite films. Because he couldn’t help himself, he ended up talking about how specific shots contributed to his choices. In his words, these solitary frames “went directly through my skull, like a bullet spreading particles of my brain on my walls”. A charming image, we can all agree.
“The shot of Daniel Day-Lewis baptising a baby with oil, making There Will Be Blood an instant new classic,” he began, before detailing a more gruesome inspiration, “I felt the same way watching the Coen brothers’ opus No Country for Old Men. The image of the policeman’s boots making dark marks on the floor as he is being strangled by the nightmarish killer, portrayed by Javier Bardem, has haunted me since then.”
Moving on to animals being axed for the plot, he recalled, “The deer being killed in slow motion by a car in A Prophet remains one of the most powerful cinematic shots of the last decade”, musing, “But is it better than following Scarlett Johansson in a pool of darkness in Under the Skin? Apples and oranges. Lists are for grocery stores.”
The first shot Villeneuve mentioned comes from Paul Thomas Anderson’s twisted tale of family and oil. Day-Lewis’ Daniel Plainview adopts the child of a fallen co-worker, ceremonially rubbing the black stuff on his head. The move symbolises Plainview’s commitment to greed above all else, and is flipped on its head later in the film when he is properly baptised by an actual preacher. As for the Coen brothers, their film No Country for Old Men features multiple glorious shots of Anton Chigurh going about his psychopathic hitman ways, chillingly brought to life by Bardem.
Next up was the scene from Une Prophète (A Prophet) from a pre-Emilia Pérez Jacques Audiard. Deer play a key symbolic role in the film, which makes the shot of one flying through the air after being hit by a car all the more impressive. Finally, there’s Jonathan Glazer’s mind-bending Under the Skin, which follows a Johansson-shaped alien as it patrols Scotland hunting lonely men. Villeneuve’s appreciation for these gorgeous shots bodes incredibly well for the next James Bond outing, which he is set to helm.
You might have noticed that all four of the films Villeneuve singled out came from the 21st century. In fact, his other picks, Lars von Trier’s Dogville and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth, are all post-2000 affairs. “When I started making movies at the end of the 20th century, the previous generation of filmmakers said cinema was dead,” he wrote, “Well…long live cinema!” Amen, Denis, amen.
