The two films Jack Nicholson always recommends: “If you haven’t seen them, you haven’t seen movies”
Before Jack Nicholson was an Oscar-winning star in movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, he was cutting his teeth in the B-movie industry, starring in many low-budget horror and exploitation films, often working with Roger Corman. From The Cry-Baby Killer to The Little Shop of Horrors, Nicholson took on whatever roles he could to get closer to success.
He gained substantial acclaim when he eventually appeared in Easy Rider in 1969, a tragic exploration of the dying hippie era and the futile nature of the American dream. He was recognised with a ‘Best Supporting Actor’ nomination at the Academy Awards, and he subsequently went on to land some larger roles. He starred alongside Barbra Streisand in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, took on the leading role in Five Easy Pieces and The Last Detail, and appeared with Bruce Dern and Ellen Burstyn in The King of Marvin Gardens.
Yet, due to Nicholson’s love of independent filmmaking, he teamed up with several indie directors during the early 1970s or those who had reputations in the arthouse sphere, too. He appeared in the indie film The Rebel Rousers in 1970 and even directed his own film, Drive, He Said, on a budget of just $800,000. It received mixed reviews, rousing some controversy due to certain sexual scenes. Daring and ambitious, Nicholson tapped into the counterculture and made a film that certainly wasn’t going to please everyone.
In 1975, he teamed up with Michelangelo Antonioni for The Passenger, in which he played a journalist who pretended to be a deceased businessman without realising that, by doing so, he landed himself in great danger. Antonioni was best known for his arthouse Italian drams, such as L’Avventura and La Notte, his British swinging sixties time capsule Blow-Up, and the American Zabriskie Point. Antonioni was acclaimed for his exploration of modernism, and Nicholson considered himself a big fan.
For Nicholson, arthouse and independent cinema cannot be beaten. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, he explained, “Well, cinema’s what it’s about for me. There are certain movies — like The Music Room or Il Posto by Olmi — if you haven’t seen them, you haven’t seen movies, the best of them.”
The actor views these movies as some of the finest works that cinema has to offer. The Music Room was directed by one of India’s most celebrated filmmakers, Satyajit Ray. Particularly inspired by Italian neorealism, Ray began making films in the ‘50s, beginning with Pather Panchali, the first instalment in the Apu Trilogy. This was followed by Aparajito and The World of Apu, which were both similarly acclaimed.
The Music Room, also known as Jalsaghar, was released in 1958 and follows a zamindar who prefers to indulge in music rather than doing his job, trying to ignore the government trying to put an end to the zamindari system. It was initially criticised in India, but elsewhere, it was widely praised and remains one of his best works.
Il Posto, on the other hand, was Ermanno Olmi’s second film, released in 1961. The movie stars Sandro Panseri as a man who moves to the city to get a job due to his family’s poor financial situation, even though he wants to study higher education. He gets a rather monotonous job, which threatens to ruin the new relationship he starts with a woman who is experiencing a similar set of circumstances. It won various awards and remains a classic of Italian cinema.
