Slavoj Žižek

“Trouble in Paradise is for me Ernst Lubitsch's ultimate masterpiece, even much more than To Be or Not to Be and so on and so on. It's the best critique of capitalism and a wonderful reversal of the usual logic of transgression because the point is that The Hero's life as a robber and so on, crime life is normal life, and then transgression is precisely the idea to marry and so on.”

“Sweet Smell of Success, well it's a nice depiction of the corruption of American press.”

“Picnic at Hanging Rock, I simply like early Peter Weir movies, especially those settled around some mystery like there is a certain—it's like his version of Stalker, you know? You have an area which is the Zone and then you never really learn what happens in the Zone.”

“Murmur of the Heart, it's one of those nice gentle French movies where you have incest which is portrayed as a nice secret between Mother and son.”

“The Ice Storm, I have a perfect personal attachment to this film. When James Schamus was writing the scenario he told me that he was reading a book of mine and that my theoretical book was inspiration. So it's personal reason, but I also love the movie.”

“Great Expectations, I'm simply a big fan of Dickens and all the great classical Dickens movies. I like to have them.”

“City Lights, what is there to say? This is one of the greatest movies of all times. The most sublime ending. You know that I have a photo even, Charlie Chaplin here at Radio City Hall in New York at the premiere, he cried. It's simply one of the absolute movies.”

“Okay, this is for obvious personal reason, I do the comment, although I must say that my favorite Cuarón is Children of Men which is otherwise a failure.”

“And Antichrist, I will probably not like it but I like von Trier and it's simply part of a duty.”

“I like this, I think this is because of The Joke. The Joke is the first novel by Milan Kundera and I think it's his only good novel. After that it all goes down.”

“Rossellini history films, I prefer them, these late long boring TV movies. I think that the so-called great Rossellinis, for example, I saw Germany Year Zero and so on, they no longer really work. I think this is the Rossellini to be rehabilitated.”

“Dreyer, it's more out of my love for Denmark. It's nice to know that already in the '20s, '30s Denmark was cinematic superpower and later declined, and I simply like Dreyer.”