6. His Favourite Films
In an article for
Sight and Sound Woody was asked what his all-time favourite films were along with other directors such as Quentin Tarintino and Martin Scorsese. His list is in no particular order and can be seen below. His top ten films of all time are:
La Grande Illusion (1937) Citizen Kane (1941) Bicycle Thieves (1948) Rashomon (1950) The Seventh Seal (1957) Paths of Glory (1957) The 400 Blows (1959) 8½ (1963) The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) Amarcord (1973) Woody has talked about his affinity with European cinema and how it has influenced him, as well as how he feels his work is received differently in Europe than in his own country, saying -
"I've always felt close to a European sensibility. It's a happy accident: when I was a young man and most impressionable, all these great European films were flooding New York City. I was very influenced by those films. I comes out in my work without trying to. It's like if you grow up hearing Mozart your whole life at home and you start to write music, probably what comes out - until you develop your own style - is an imitation of Mozart, to some degree. And that's what happened with me and films. I've very often relied on European cinema as a crutch or as a guide. The films I grew up with - Bergman and Fellini and Kurosawa and De Sica and Antonioni - just left an indelible mark on me. It's the same with certain American films that impressed me as a young boy, like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and Citizen Kane (1941) andDouble Indemnity (1944). There have been very few American films since that have equalled the impact those films had on me, because I do think the time you see them figures into it. Consequently my films have been well appreciated in Europe, more than the United States, where it's been so-so."
He has also spoke of the moment he fell in love with cinema, saying he got hooked on movies from the age of 3 when his mother took him to see Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937). He has said from that day theatres became his second home.