For his final Friday Night Seitz slideshow at Salon, Matt Zoller Seitz answered the age-old question, "What movies would you want to have with you if you were shipwrecked on a desert island." Matt adds, of course, that "It is assumed that you’ll have an indestructible DVD player with a solar-recharging power source" and allows for ten feature films, one short and a single season of a TV series. Matt's challenge was taken up by others, including Jim Emerson and Damian Arlyn; their cumulative desert island library includes films by directors ranging from Martin Scorsese to Buster Keaton to the Coen brothers to Don Bluth.
My choices for desert island viewing differ from my all-time top 10 in that I think my tastes would run a bit lighter due to circumstance. While I'm generally drawn to "dark, cerebral movies" (as I believe Netflix has characterized my tastes) and that's certainly reflected in part on this list, if I was limited to the same 12 viewing options forever, I'd have a greater need for movies to lighten my spirits and help me stay connected to humanity. It's kind of like Will Smith watching Shrek every day in I Am Legend to remind him of the way the world was, except I'm a much bigger snob than Will Smith. And rewatchability is very important, of course. I thought about skipping movies that Matt, Jim or Damian had already chosen, but when you force movie geeks to limit themselves to twelve titles for the rest of their lives, I guess some overlap is inevitable.
All That Jazz - Bob Fosse's cinematic self-portrait is exhilarating in a way that very few films are. It's an incredibly entertaining examination of how an excessive dedication to one's craft gives one's life meaning even as it tears one apart. Roy Scheider was never better than as Fosse's surrogate, Joe Gideon, a chain-smoking, pill-popping, womanizing director juggling a Broadway musical, a feature film, current and past lovers, his relationship with his daughter and an impending heart attack, among other things. His hallucinatory trip through his own life and impending death is frighteningly insightful, often hilarious and punctuated with some of Fosse's best choreography, culminating in a glittery, show-stopping eulogy that can only be described as fabulous. I think it's impossible to get tired of this movie.
Boogie Nights - While There Will Be Blood is my favorite P.T. Anderson movie by a hair, Quentin Tarantino was right when he characterized Boogie Nights as an "exhuberant" film (as opposed to There Will Be Blood's formalism). It's one of the movies where, every time I watch it, I can't stop debating with myself whether my favorite scene is the current one, or the one before it, or the next one. Every character is my favorite character. For it's two-and-a-half hours, Boogie Nights radiates with the joy of movies and filmmaking. No matter how crappy I'm feeling, it never fails to bring a smile to my face.
E.T. - One of the very first movies I really loved, and the first one that got me thinking about what it means to make a movie. E.T.'s stock in the collective imagination seems to have fallen a bit since I was a kid - most of the time when I mention it to people my age, they dismiss it as a movie that frightened them when they were kids. But through my childhood, it meant more to me than Star Wars or any of the other staples of my youth. Even now, I can't think too hard about certain images or moments or even John Williams' score (his best) without getting a bit misty. I'd want it on the island not for nostalgic reasons but because it remains the most clear-eyed and insightful movie about growing up. And I imagine it'd be wonderful to revisit over and over under a canopy of stars.
Fargo - The Coens' best movie is the best example of their deadpan comic genius and ability to mine laughter and genuine pathos from flawed, sometimes banal people in desperate situations. It's also filled with a fondness for their home state that pokes a lot of fun at Minnesotans' earnestness while still demonstrating real affection. Very pregnant sheriff Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) is probably my favorite cinematic hero - she's true to herself, good to her husband Norm (John Carroll Lynch), unflappable while investigating a brutal double homicide and driven by an unshakeable sense of right and wrong. Her monologue to one of the kidnappers at the film's end ("There's more to live than a little money, ya know. Don't you know that?") and the coda with Marge and Norm in bed, talking about his three-cent mallard stamp, never fail to move me. Plus, it would be nice, on the island, to be reminded of snow.
Goodfellas - Scorsese's most entertaining movie. If I'm channel surfing and Goodfellas is on, even with the DVD about five feet away from the TV, it's almost impossible to stop watching. It doesn't have the kind of lightness of being that a lot of my choices have - it's a movie about very likeable assholes doing terrible things and learning nothing in the process. As such, it's one of the greatest dark comedies of all time, not to mention Scorsese - at a point in his career when he had a lot to prove - employing just about every cinematic trick at his disposal to tell this story and clearly having a blast doing it. Goodfellas is one of those movies that always reminds me what film is capable of. And seeing as I'll be on the island for a very long time, that gives me whole days to examine just the Copacabana tracking shot. Or the Billy Batts sequence. Or the "Layla" scene. Or the commercial for Morrie's Wigs...
Harold and Maude - One of those rare movies that, in the gentlest way possible, always reminds me how much of everyday life is bullshit and what really matters. Hal Ashby's laid-back stoner vibe is deceptive; it's an unpretentious movie, unafraid to be silly, but also very deep and true. Plus, a little Cat Stevens makes every day worth living.
Manhattan - This has long been my favorite Woody Allen movie, but it really came into focus when I was watching the American Masters documentary on Allen, thanks to Mariel Hemingway calling Allen a "mush." It's very true - as much as Allen's work is preoccupied with death, the non-existence of God and other sources of anxiety and existential despair, they're just as much a celebration of human relationships. Sure, they often end in heartbreak or betrayal, and Manhattan is unsparing in underlining the ways that people can be selfish and casually cruel, or how - as Allen laments in Annie Hall - love fades. But it's also a deeply romantic film, in love with the ways that people can lend each others' lives meaning, how a city is alive with millions of people living their own movies, and how a perfect, holy moment is always possible when you least expect it.
The Shining - My girlfriend believes that, though I call Blue Velvet my favorite movie, my true favorite is The Shining, which I apparently talk about ten times as much. It's certainly the movie I've seen the most times and return to constantly; I've been working through its multiple mysteries, layers and ambiguities for over 20 years, and each time I revisit it, the film reveals a new shade of meaning. If someone asked me to name a perfect film, The Shining would be my answer; if I could only take one movie to the island, it would be my choice and I would happily watch it every night. Plus, I think it would be good to have a movie to watch that is almost entirely composed of interiors; over time, I would probably grow jealous of Jack Torrance and his cabin fever.
Synecdoche, New York - A movie that reminds us that, no matter how bad things get, they can always (and, eventually, will) get worse. While sometimes I need comfort food on a bad day like everyone else, a movie like Synecdoche, New York provides a different kind of therapy. It's about everything we fear and regret - failed ambitions, broken relationships, loneliness, the suspicion that everything is meaningless and, above all, death. And it confronts our darkest thoughts with eyes wide open, with wit and honesty and a stunning amount of empathy, reminding more strongly than any movie I've seen that we're all in this together. It's a movie filled with misery, and it never fails to make me feel better. No matter how dark things get on that island, I can always count on Synecdoche, New York to help me pull myself together.
The short film I would bring to the island is The Wrong Trousers. The toy train chase between Wallace and Gromit and the villainous, silent penguin left the nine-year-old me breathless with laughter, and it hasn't lost any of its charm.
Originally I was thinking I would bring a season of Lost, then decided I might not be in the mood as I'd be stuck on a frigging island. So I'll go with season one of Twin Peaks. I'll have the rest of my life to explore the mysteries of Bob, the man from another planet and all the other strange and mysterious elements that, thanks to David Lynch, seem completely effortless. And even if/when I tired of the show as a puzzle, I'd always have Agent Cooper, Sheriff Truman, Audrey Horne, the Log Lady and all the other residents of Twin Peaks to keep me company.
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