Jodie Foster

“Let’s go to one of my favorite movies that I think should be taught in every course: Céline Sciamma’s movie Portrait of a Lady on Fire. An absolutely, deliciously beautiful film. A period movie that couldn’t be more relevant and contemporary. Some people talk about it as being one of the first films to really illustrate what a female gaze would be and would look like. It’s emotional, it’s intelligent, it’s beautiful. A great film.”

“She also did Petite maman, which is here. A beautiful film, completely different. Really trying to do very small things. It’s a gorgeous film. These two movies are going in my bag.”

“Okay. Next: The Piano. One of my favorite movies of all time. Holly Hunter. The score is something that you’ll never forget, this beautiful, lonely piano score that Holly Hunter learned how to play piano to be able to play this incredibly difficult score. It’s a very quiet movie, about a woman who is mute, and so expresses herself and shows herself through her music. Gorgeous movie. If you love New Zealand, you will love this film.”

“Well, there’s this great movie that was a documentary about the Olympics called Visions of Eight. Mai Zetterling, a Swedish filmmaker, woman director, is in there, but also great filmmakers like Miloš Forman, John Schlesinger, the list goes on. Extraordinary. All looking at the Olympics from their point of view, but also with different categories of the Olympics. That’s definitely going in my box.”

“We got Parasite by Bong Joon Ho, the one that he won the Oscar for and that everybody knows, but many other films that he made, like Okja. Gosh, they’re everywhere. He’s an extraordinary filmmaker. What I love about his movies is that he manages to bring wry wit and a kind of quirkiness to dark themes, and as a director, that’s pretty much where I live. Oh, by the way, we were talking about Parasite. Guess what? There’s a black-and-white version that Bong Joon Ho included in here, which makes me nuts. I can’t wait to see it.”

“La Haine, a movie that I love. I was involved in the film somehow. Honestly, I was not involved creatively in the movie at all. It is a beautiful film made by my friend Mathieu Kassovitz. I was working with him on developing another project with him, he’s also an actor, and he said, “You might want to see the movie that I just made, because, who knows, you might not like it and you might not want to work with me.” And I fell in love with the film. Great performance by Vincent Cassel when he was young and gorgeous. Still is, but he’s older. That’s… I think I’m on this one. So I think I speak on this one.”

“La strada. So many great Fellini movies, the ones you remember: Amarcord.”

“A Japanese movie that I loved called Woman in the Dunes. It is slow and it is absolutely, stunningly beautiful, in black and white. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s a true art film, and every film student should see this one.”

“We should go to Wings of Desire, Wim Wenders, the great master filmmaker, Bruno Ganz as the angel in his beautiful big, flowy coat on the Brandenburg Gate. An unforgettable film with also a beautiful soundtrack, really says something about… about Germany and about dreams and love.”

“My mom, for some reason, was obsessed with Fassbinder, so we went to see a lot of Fassbinder movies, and I’m pretty sure Criterion has a whole collection, including Berlin Alexanderplatz, which is the TV show that Fassbinder did. Oh, wow. Look, it just appeared in my hand. And look how gorgeous that cover is. I remember my mom and I watching the whole series together. That just tells you all about my childhood.”

“Oh, yeah. And there’s some more movies of Mai Zetterling. We’re going to put those in the box, too, because you have to discover things.”

“Oh, they’ve got a box set, the Essential Fellini. Look how pretty it is. Every movie is more beautiful than the next. Juliet of the Spirits, Satyricon, Roma. The Ship Sails On I love because there’s this gorgeous ship, it’s all painted and it’s just beautiful. This is going to be amazing.”

“So, since I’m an actor, you kind of have to get the full John Cassavetes. He really did something different than anybody else has ever done in cinema: create authenticity so that you have this feeling that you’re inside the experience. That’s what we all hope for, as actors, that the audience is in there with us, that they’re behind our faces, behind our eyes and our expressions, experiencing the things that we’re experiencing. This box set is a pretty great one. It’s got Faces, it has A Woman Under the Influence, with Gena Rowlands. That was John Cassavetes’s partner, Gena Rowlands, one of the greatest actresses that ever lived. And that is an extraordinary performance about madness. I just love this movie.”