Donald Sutherland on his favourite films: “My life changed on that day”
There is no performer who came close to Donald Sutherland, with the actor possessing an inherent wisdom and gregariousness that made him effortlessly interesting. Throughout his career, his creative choices never failed to surprise audiences, with a deep level of sensitivity that made him a truly beautiful and captivating performer, bringing compassion to villains and depth to those who were misunderstood. Whether it be his haunting performance in Don’t Look Now, Invasion of the Body Snatchers or his heartbreaking portrayal of a grieving father in Ordinary People, the actor was so in tune with the language of cinema that he could find endless possibilities within any given character.
Through working with auteurs such as Bernardo Bertolucci, Nicolas Roeg, Robert Redford and Philip Kaufman, he cultivated a profound love for the medium and all its intricacies, something that informed his own personal taste in film as he revealed the stories that most impacted him over the course of his life.
Cinema has the power to both comfort and disturb us, with film lovers often retreating to specific genres depending on their emotional needs at the time. For Sutherland, he has fond memories of the projects that shocked him and changed his perspective in some profound way, citing the capabilities of film to both move and forever change us.
When discussing the films that have moved him the most, Sutherland said, “My first shock was watching Great Expectations, the film by David Lean, in 1946, with my mother. In one of the film’s scenes, Abel Magwitch, played by Finlay Currie, jumps out from behind some trees. I jumped onto my mother’s lap and watched the rest of the film like that. That was my first shock of cinematographic purity”.
Starring John Mills and Valerie Hobson, the film is one of the earliest adaptations of Charles Dickens’ formative masterpiece and a key staple in the history of British cinema. Sometimes our earliest memories of the medium are the ones that stick with us the most, often for reasons unknown to us and touching on some hidden fear or fascination that we cannot articulate.
Sutherland also cited the impact of films he watched as an adult that shaped his taste, explaining, “A long while later, in 1957, I went to see another film, by some guy that I didn’t know. His name was Stanley Kubrick, and his film was called Paths of Glory. My life changed on that day. I was mad at the entire world. The mere thought of talking about this cinematographic experience makes me want to cry. Gillo Pontecorvo’s films have also moved me a great deal. The Battle of Algiers (La battaglia di Algeri)(1966) and Burn! (Queimada) (1969), starring Marlon Brando, are milestones on my path as a film lover.”
His personal taste is largely influenced by the work of directors from all over the globe, with Gillo Pontecorvo seemingly being a favourite of the actor after listing two of his films among those he most admires. This no doubt seeped into his creative choices over the years, with Sutherland describing his own filmography as being like “a platter of fruits”, saying, “you might not like everything, but you can grab something, peel it, and like it”.
