The one movie John Carpenter called a “masterpiece”
If the 1970s were a time of unbridled experimentation in Hollywood cinema, where the likes of Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese rose to power, then the following decade can be considered to be a commercialisation of this innovation. Left to evolve and grow in a decade that steadily eased towards the new millennium, the 1980s were a wild time for the movies, becoming a playground where directors like John Carpenter, James Cameron and John Hughes thrived.
Indeed, no filmmaker better captures the vibrancy of this decade than Carpenter, the eccentric mind behind some of the zaniest movies of the era. A lover of horror, Carpenter brought The Thing to life in 1982 before working with Donald Pleasence in 1987 for the release of Prince of Darkness, all whilst defining the times with pulpy action flicks like 1981’s Escape from New York and 1986’s Big Trouble in Little China, choosing Kurt Russell as his favourite leading man.
Unsurprisingly, Carpenter, therefore, became an iconic figure in the 1980s, informing countless other movies that were released during the same decade, including Sean S. Cunningham’s Friday the 13th and James Cameron’s Terminator.
His opinion on cinema is held in high regard, which is why he was asked to reveal his five favourite movies of all time in an interview back in 2011. Among his picks, Carpenter had a fondness for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 thriller Vertigo, starring James Stewart, which told the story of a detective who becomes obsessed with the very woman he was supposed to be investigating.
Speaking about Hitchcock’s classic, Carpenter calls the film “a perfect nightmare. Perfect. It’s a dream, and it’s stunning”.
Often topping lists of the greatest movies of all time, Hitchcock’s iconic film was released shortly before his back-to-back successes of North by Northwest in 1959 and the horror classic Psycho in 1960. “It’s so dark and obsessive,” Carpenter adds regarding Vertigo, “And it came from this director who claimed to only want to entertain the audiences. But that’s not true; it’s a masterpiece.”
Elsewhere, Carpenter also mentioned another cinematic classic as a favourite of his, naming Orson Welles’ 1941 tour de force Citizen Kane. Speaking about the movie, the director behind Escape from New York, stated: “Citizen Kane is a great film. Like Hawks, this movie is a vision, primarily the director’s vision, of something that is whole and complete.”
Aside from these classics, Carpenter also shed some light on one of his all-time favourite filmmakers, Howard Hawks. Picking out two of his classic movies, Only Angels Have Wings and Rio Bravo, Carpenter expressed: “In Hawks’ world, Only Angels Have Wings, and Rio Bravo are his visions of adventure stories with male groups, and men and women’s relationships, and life and death and danger. He’s developed that idea throughout his career. Those are just his beliefs.”
Take a look at the trailer for Vertigo, the movie John Carpenter called a “masterpiece”, below.
