Jonah Hill names his five favourite documentaries
Few modern actors have undergone the same level of transformation as Jonah Hill has. Audiences first became aware of Hill as the comic relief bit-part with his hilarious yet brief turns in Judd Apatow’s directorial debut, The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Since then, Hill forged a solid career in more artful works, working with the likes of Martin Scorsese, the Coen brothers and Quentin Tarantino.
However, in 2018, he made his directorial debut with Mid90s and proved beyond doubt that he was just as capable behind the camera as he was in front of it. A slow-burning, raw portrait of a child’s coming-of-age in the titular mid-1990s, Hill’s first feature was far removed from anything he’d acted in. It utilised candid and messy 16mm photography and boasted unflinchingly raw performances from a mix of professional and non-actors. At times, it often felt like a documentary, and considering his love for the medium, this isn’t too surprising.
During an interview with Le Cinéma Club, Hill picked his five favourite documentaries, ranging from character studies to broader paintings of an entire sub-culture. Starting with Ondi Timoner’s 2004 film, DIG!, Hill praised it for being an “example of how great storytelling can get you unbelievably engaged”. Charting the ever-growing rivalry between two bands, the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols, the movie evolves into a portrait of “this super Shakespearian love affair/friendship/rivalry. For me,” Hill states. “This film is as important among docs as Goodfellas is among narrative features,” he added.
Hill then turned his attention to what is often regarded as “the lost Scorsese movie”, American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince. It follows the titular character, a prominent and legendary figure of the drug-fuelled music industry in the 1970s, and even features director Scorsese himself, who “talks 200 miles a second”. In the documentary, Prince tells a story that Quentin Tarantino would eventually use as a pivotal sequence in Pulp Fiction: “Steven Prince tells the story for the needle in the chest; it had happened to him, he had put a magic marker on a girl’s chest and plunged an adrenaline needle into her heart.”
Penelope Spheeris’ 1981 work The Decline of Western Civilisation was up next, a trilogy of which Hill has singled out the first instalment, which follows the “hardcore punk in L.A. in the early ’80s”. Citing the visuals as a significant influence on his movie, Hill described the movie as a “remarkable and encompassing snapshot of a scene that I’m personally drawn to, and the ethics and aesthetics of the film are as fucked up and raw as what it’s depicting”.
Lauding it as “my second favourite doc of all time”, the actor discussed Inventing David Geffen by Susan Lacy, the 2012 film about “the single most successful entrepreneur ever in the entertainment business”. A PBS documentary, Lacy’s character study explores who Hill considers to be “the smartest businessman to have entered the art world. He’s almost got the soul of an artist”.
Lastly was Jam Blumenfield’s seminal 2002 movie Small Town Ecstacy. Exploring “a preacher, a normal guy, married” who decides to quit his job and join his teenage son in immersing in small-town rave culture. “He takes ecstasy and becomes their peer: a gnarly, insane raver,” Hill recalls. “He’s taking ecstasy every night. It’s also funny and obviously more fucked up – because it’s real.” Ultimately, for Hill, “It’s a drama. It gets into the complexities of what drives someone to do this, how it feels for their kids and for their ex-wife, what experiences led him to break.”
Jonah Hill’s favourite documentaries:
- DIG! (Ondi Timoner, 2004)
- American Boy: A Profile Of Steven Prince (Martin Scorsese, 1978)
- The Decline of Western Civilisation (Penelope Spheeris, 1981)
- Inventing David Geffen (Susan Lacy, 2012)
- Small Town Ecstacy (Jay Blumenfield, 2002)
