In March 2014, Tilda Swinton, who won the 2007 Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her stunning performance in Michael Clayton, shared 8 of her favorite underrated films with Entertainment Weekly. The resulting list provided an all to rare highbrowish moment for the snarky, disaffected, and increasingly millenial-toned magazine, and a welcome respite from its slavish sucking up to studio tentpoles, franchises, and CGD crap. (“franchise” and “tentpole” are two marketing words that I despise in relation to film—and I bet Tilda does too).
“I loved this challenge. I want to raise awareness of these films, and if anybody seeks them out that would be rocking.”
In March 2014, Tilda Swinton, who won the 2007 Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her stunning performance in Michael Clayton, shared 8 of her favorite underrated films with Entertainment Weekly. The resulting list provided an all to rare highbrowish moment for the snarky, disaffected, and increasingly millenial-toned magazine, and a welcome respite from its slavish sucking up to studio tentpoles, franchises, and CGD crap. (“franchise” and “tentpole” are two marketing words that I despise in relation to film—and I bet Tilda does too).
Here is her list along with her comments.
1. Peter Ibbetson (1935), Directed by Henry Hathaway
“A fetish film for surrealists with the great Gary Cooper. It’s a love story of two children who get parted, meet as adults, get parted again, and then meet in dreams.”
2. A Canterbury Tale (1949), Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
“It’s about England and pride in national history and is almost a piece of propaganda but the most poetic and elegant propaganda you could imagine.”
3. Twenty-Four Eyes, (1954), Directe by Keisuke Kinoshita
“A young primary school teacher on a small island off Japan. Some of her boys grow up and go away to the war. It’s beautiful and heartbreaking.”
4. Britannia Hospital, (1983), Directed by Lindsay Anderson
“A satire about the National Health Service. It’s sick, sick, sick funny and super political. Lindsay Anderson is a great master of English filmmaking.”
5. Ginger and Fred, (1986), Directed by Federico Fellini
“It’s about Ginger and Fred impersonators who are invited to a TV studio to take part in some terrible variety shows. When I first saw it I thought it was the most extreme satire. Now it [seems like] a documentary.”
6. Barking Dogs Never Bite, (2000), Directed by Bong Joon-Ho
“The first film by my friend whom I’m proud to say I’m doing a film with [Snowpiercer]. It’s a pretty black comedy about eating dogs in Korea.”
7. Idiocracy, (2006), Directed by Mike Judge
“God it’s so good. The performances are fantastic, and it’s incredibly witty, and look out for the President of the United States is all I can say.”
8. Gentleman Broncos, (2009), Directed by Jared Hess
“By the Napoleon Dynamite director. It’s kind of insane. It’s about a writer whose work is plagiarized, and it’s really, really, silly. Just go and find it.”
