The film Jarvis Cocker describes as pure “movie magic”
Apart from being the leader of recently-reunited Britpop titans Pulp, Jarvis Cocker has distinguished himself as a bit of a cultural connoisseur. This is this same man, after all, who put his internationally famous band on hold in the late 1980s in order to study film at Saint Martin’s School of Art. His dedication to education would be immortalized in the lyrics to ‘Common People’, but a dedication towards narrative and cinematic storytelling could be sensed in even the earliest of Pulp songs.
During the earliest days of Covid-19 isolation, art director Kim Sion launched an Instagram series entitled ‘Sion’s Cinema’ in which a guest would take over the page and recommend five of their favourite movies to help people with the difficulties of staying in one place for extended periods of time. As Sion’s partner, Cocker got first dibs as the series’ first guest.
“My Significant Other had the great idea of asking friends to recommend five favourite films to help while away the hours whilst we’re all stuck indoors,” Cocker explained during his appearance. “Guess who got asked to go first? I’ll bet you’ve seen some (if not all) of them before – but never under these circumstances. Stay safe.”
To the surprise of nobody, Cocker showed himself to be a bit of a film buff. From the uniquely Yorkshire point of view of Ken Loach’s Kes to the darkly comical superhero extravaganza of Tim Burton’s Batman Returns, Cocker offered a wide array of styles, genres, and stories to keep the mind occupied during some forced isolation.
Cocker also highlighted some more obscure material, including the 1972 documentary Glastonbury Fayre. Nicolas Roeg’s documentation of the very first Glastonbury festival is the closest that film comes to entering a time machine, and Cocker himself has quite a few fond memories of the festival that likely influenced his choice. Cocker also gave a shout-out to Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard, the Italian/French drama starring Burt Lancaster.
There was also some room for whimsy, as shown by Cocker’s fondness for the 1971 musical Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. “It’s pretty difficult to be in a bad mood whilst watching this film,” Cocker accurately observes. “Gene Wilder’s first appearance is a moment of pure movie magic.” That moment, when an apparently weak and sickly Willy Wonka fakes out an entire crowd, is as iconic as the film itself.
Watch the moment from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory down below.
