Jason Schwartzman picks a collection of his favourite movies
Jason Schwartzman is beloved by many, not least by long-time collaborator and friend Wes Anderson, whose film Asteroid City Schwartzman recently starred in. The actor went straight out of the blocks and into a Wes Anderson film, Rushmore, in 1998, and has since appeared in The Grand Budapest Hotel, The French Dispatch, Moonrise Kingdom, and Fantastic Mr. Fox.
So when Criterion invited Schwartzman into the closet to pick his favourites, we were all ears. Given the varied and off-the-wall projects Schwartzman has been involved in, his favourite films must give us some food for thought, and he didn’t disappoint. “The Killers,” he begins, “The version I’m familiar with is the Don Siegel version. There’s a movie that I just made called Asteroid City and […] an aspect of it is to do with acting and the things actors do, and sometimes overdo. One of the things that Wes suggested I look at is Clu Gulager’s performance in this film. I watched it so many times, I needed it so much as a reference that I ended up just filming my television, which I shouldn’t say, so that I had it on my phone at all times.”
Schwartzman then goes over to Under the Volcano: “It’s great to watch John Huston watching the actors, seeing the shot, the way he talks to th actors, the way everyone is listening to each other, the way he’s responding, someone who, you know, has made these masterpieces, and then while everything’s happening, he can just like sit there and read a paper and I go ‘that’s because he knows what the F he’s doing’.”
Following on, Schwartzman expresses his love for Straw Dogs: “The takeaways I take from watching this are silly, but one, that Dustin Hofman, you see him shaving with an electric razor in his trailer, it looks like the kind of thing that would just eat your neck up, but he’s just [shaver noise, mumbling].
“The thing that I found really, that stays with me is […] how they budget their focus and energy over the course of a shoot, and what they do between takes. And Sam Peckinpah [director] doesn’t read the newspaper, he has a knife that, it’s a pretty big knife, and he throws it at this door that’s like a broken door piece of wood that’s leaning against this house [acts throwing knife], until they’re ready to shoot.
“I’ve never been around a knife-throwing director, don’t know how I’d feel about it, yeah I guess in that case though I’d be more afraid of the razor.” We’re not sure we’d want to be around either, to be honest. Schwartzman then takes a more sentimental turn: “An Unmarried Woman, Jill Clayburgh I think is just one of the greatest actors of all time. A wonderful, beautiful performance. I don’t know, she’s like showing you a maze but without solving it for you. “
The picture clearly held more emotional value for Schwartzman, too, as he explained: “When my wife and I first started dating, I think we were dating, I don’t know if she, in my mind that’s when it started […] we were dating, and around this time I remember we were giving each other music and movies and things, and my wife gave my this. Looking back, when it’s someone you love and have a family with, it’s amazing that they gave you this thing, because it’s saying like here’s me […] It’s a way to invite someone to know you in a way that you can’t really articulate. So I love this because of Jill Clayburgh and also just the special place it holds in my heart.”
Schwartzman’s taste in film is once again influenced by loved ones, with a classic passed down from his mother: “So this movie right here is The Red Shoes, and no movie reminds me of my life more than The Red Shoes. And what I mean by that is this is my mother’s favourite movie ever made. It was the first time I saw that a movie could be of nutritional value to someone, if that makes sense like it was more than a movie. What she got from it was, I don’t know what it was, but as a little kid I remember thinking like ‘I don’t see that at other kids’ houses’.”
Finally, Schwartzman loves Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well. He explains: “I love the way information gets dispersed in this movie, through people giving speeches but then other people walking, like whispering things and people not wanting to disturb the event.” Schwartzman leaves with “two things that I have not seen that I’m pumped about, we got Local Hero, and this is the Pasolini collection […] just, thanks.”
Jason Schwartzman’s favourite movies:
- The Killers (Don Siegel, 1964)
- Under the Volcano (John Huston, 1984)
- Straw Dogs (Sam Peckinpah, 1971)
- An Unmarried Woman (Paul Mazursky, 1978)
- The Red Shoes (Powell & Pressburger, 1948)
- The Bad Sleep Well (Akira Kurosawa, 1960)
