Jack Coyne

“Okay, I’m going to start off with The Last Waltz. The greatest concert film ever made. The Band, the greats. And my favorite director, Martin Scorsese. The great thing about Scorsese is he went back and forth between narrative movies and documentaries, and he’s music-obsessed. Marty, I love you.”

“Written on the Wind. This is a Technicolor dream of a movie. Douglas Sirk, one of my all-time favorite filmmakers. I feel like melodramas kind of get a bad rap by a lot of people, but they’re, like, post-modern. They’re purposely overly emotional, and that’s what draws me into this style of movie. They lean into everything that makes cinema great.”

“The Celebration. Dogme. The first Dogme movie. And the way that this movie is shot is hugely inspiring. It’s kind of shot like the Criterion Closet. It’s just, like, they would put a camera in the Closet and actors would go in there, and they wouldn’t pick out DVDs, but they would have these really intense emotional scenes. It feels like you’re being injected into these people’s lives. It’s an OG.”

“Godard, Pierrot le fou. Jean-Paul Belmondo. Is there a better, more charismatic actor in the world than this guy at the peak of his game? I don’t know that there would be Brad Pitt if it wasn’t for Jean-Paul Belmondo. Is that a hot take? Has anyone ever said that before? He is dripping with charisma, the playfulness. This is, like– You know, Godard’s films can be kind of hard to reach. This one is very, very accessible. It’s romantic, it’s cute, it’s flirty, it’s fun, it’s a joy to watch. And it’s also just beautiful. The colors in this movie pop off the screen. I love this movie. I’m excited to rewatch this.”

“Love Affair will grip you. The romance, the heartbreak that happens here. This movie is so good, it’s been remade probably 100 times. It’s every romantic film you’ve ever seen, it’s based off of this movie. I also love these old movies with ships. 1939, it’s, like, people were taking these grand cruise ships across the Atlantic Ocean. There’s that story in here. If you haven’t been able to tell up until this point, I’m a romantic. I love romantic movies. This is one of the best.”

“Worst Person in the World. Joachim Trier, who I discovered relatively early on, before he made this movie. I think the first one that I saw was Reprise, which is about a group of teenage, high-school-age friends as they’re getting older, what’s happening to them. He made another movie, Oslo, August 31st, that I saw in theaters, and ever since those two I was waiting for him to make new films, and whenever there was even, you know, looking online, “what’s he gonna be–?” Hearing the first news he’s working on this, I remember telling my friends, “This is gonna be… I’m telling you this movie’s gonna be incredible.” The rest is history. And I was lucky enough to get to meet Joachim for Track Star. And he is not only the coolest guy, not only was he a professional skateboarder and world-champion skateboarder of Norway, he’s also just the nicest, sweetest guy ever, coolest guy. Incredible filmmaker. Cuts through, hits you in the heart. He’s the best. All of his movies are amazing. Joachim, love you.”

“Now, Voyager. More boat stuff.”

“One more: Mildred Pierce. Again, I don’t know why I came in here with such, like…”

“Oh, there’s one more: Leave Her to Heaven. These are also incredible melodrama movies.”

“Aki Kaurismäki. I saw this – The Match Factory Girl and a bunch of these – when I was in college, and they’re hilarious, but they’re uniquely hilarious. There’s nothing quite like these movies and the deadpan nature of the humor. But besides the humor, they’re beautiful. There’s colors in this movie that are super different than what you typically see. The performances are amazing. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry. Kaurismäki, always a winner.”

“And there’s one more: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Marriage of Maria Braun, Veronika Voss, and Lola. Again, to tie things up with my whole melodrama thing, I mentioned Douglas Sirk and Written on the Wind earlier, Fassbinder was someone who was hugely inspired by Sirk. He is someone who is hugely inspiring to me. His movies are weird. They’re beautiful. They are playing with emotion in a way that’s unlike any other director that I can think of.”