Ethan Hawke names the most “beautiful” movie he’s ever laid eyes on
I like Ethan Hawke, and it’s not just because he’s made loads of great films in his time, which I appreciate, but really it’s because whenever you see him interviewed or read a quote from him, he comes over as one of those rare big names who treats the extremes, the fame and the hero worship of Hollywood and movie making in general with at least a modicum of perspective.
Despite the fact he’s been famous for almost 40 years, since the Robin Williams drama Dead Poets Society in 1989, he doesn’t seem to have let it alter his thoughts on the fact that he’d far rather be making films he believes in than taking a large cheque for a blockbuster. The director Richard Linklater, who Hawke has made nine movies with, backed this up last year to GQ when recalling their first meeting, saying: “He was the hot commodity. He was the guy. But you would never know it. He had none of the trappings of a Hollywood star.”
Their creative partnership has lasted 30 years now, taking in the acclaimed Before trilogy, the epic, Oscar-winning Boyhood, filmed over a 12-year period, and last year’s Blue Moon, the biopic that has earned Hawke both Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for ‘Best Actor’.
And even outside of his movies with Linklater, Hawke has shown far more depth of interest and creativity than the vast majority of acting stars, expanding his work into novel writing, directing documentaries and an extensive love of music.
While he has outlined some of his favourite movies previously, including 1974’s A Woman Under the Influence, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, when asked by AnOther to name the most beautiful things he’d ever seen, it was a lesser-known classic that came to mind.
Hawke answered: “The aurora borealis. A pack of wolves. Each of my children being born. The film Fanny and Alexander. The Grand Canyon at Sundown. Cherry from The Outsiders.”
Fanny and Alexander is a 1982 film directed by the legendary Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, a sprawling semi-autobiographical effort that he conceived of as his final major movie. In directing what he hoped would be his magnum opus, Bergman put together a film that, with an uncut running time of 312 minutes, became one of the longest ever shown in cinemas, and picked up six Oscar nominations, winning three, including ‘Best Foreign Language Film’ for Bergman.
His win came some 23 years after he was first nominated for 1959’s Wild Strawberries, and in between Bergman had forged a reputation as one of the greatest directors in movie history. In fact, one of his films, 1963’s Winter Light, proved hugely influential for Hawke as he got ready to play a pastor in the acclaimed 2017 thriller First Reformed, a film that was also Oscar-nominated for ‘Best Screenplay’.
If anything, Hawke seems to be getting even better as the years go by; aside from his more arty movies, he has had huge hits with both instalments of the stylish horror The Black Phone, plus he’s starring as a troubled journalist trying to solve mysteries in The Lowdown, the crime series that’s been renewed by FX for a second season.
He’s also in a historical drama called The Weight alongside Russell Crowe, a story of gold smugglers in Depression-era America, but as yet, a UK release date hasn’t been confirmed.
