Steve Coogan

“First thing I see up there is The Lady Vanishes. Hitchcock. Which is one of my favorites of his. There’s a looming threat. Psychological thrillers I think are so much more interesting. I think a lot of modern filmmakers could take a leaf out of his book, that he’s never gratuitous. The violence is always implied. It’s left to your imagination, which I think is much more compelling and engaging than just showing, you know, extreme violence, which I think is dehumanizing. And Hitchcock doesn’t do that. And also he laces it with humor.”

“12 Angry Men. Well, that’s Sidney Lumet, someone who’s workmanlike, who doesn’t mystify or mythologize his process. He’s written a very good book about it, on directing, and he talks about it in a way that feels like he’s talking about how to build a bridge or something, almost like he’s an engineer. It’s really refreshing. It’s very honest and direct and unambiguous and very accessible.”

“The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Okay, so The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. There’s a lack of color to this film, which is… Well, it’s black-and-white, but… I mean in the way it’s rendered, it’s… it leans into that monochromatic world that we imagined the Cold War to be in. There’s a speech in this film that Richard Burton gives, which is, I think, the best speech he gave as an actor, about what spies are. It’s the counterargument to James Bond. It’s a John le Carré… Based on the John le Carré book, of course, and really… really it’s worth watching just for that speech. And it has a bleakness to it I really like.”

“Matter of Life and Death. Okay, so… Powell and Pressburger, they managed to embrace the surreal and the avant-garde and still make something accessible and popular. And that is such a hard thing to pull off. And they do it so well. But A Matter of Life and Death is wonderful. David Niven. Funny, witty. Deals with mortality and love in a… in a fun way. I love them for that. And that’s… This film in particular is a great one that deserves repeated viewing.”

“Okay, The Servant. Cracking movie. All about the British class system. Full of tension and microscopic attention to detail. It’s about power play. The shift of power in a relationship. Really stands the test of time. Very interesting that Joseph Losey, this American… It takes an American, an outsider, if you like, to sort of see the British class system objectively, because he’s not part of it. So he can see it as an outsider, as a witness. Yeah, I love this film. It’s fantastic.”

“Klute, Alan J. Pakula. This is very morally ambiguous. Jane Fonda gives, I think, the performance of her career. And it’s disturbing and unsettling, and the way it’s framed, it makes you a voyeur. Sometimes the screen will be… there’ll be a big wide screen and half of the screen will be black and the other half will be black and it’s just a narrow gap in a doorway that you’re looking through. Plays the whole scene like that. It takes real confidence. And it’s not just there to be different or experimental. It actually serves the narrative. You feel like you’re pulled into it. You feel you’re eavesdropping. So you lean into the screen and listen to it more. Fantastic film.”

“His Girl Friday. Okay. Often these films, it’s best to always see them on a big screen because they don’t go in for close-ups. They just rehearse it, almost like it’s a play. And they stay on the wide. And they just have these characters who… your eye goes to them, the way it would in the theater. Someone gives a performance, you just check them out and then you look over here. You sort of do the edit yourself. But they’re so well rehearsed that all the cues are really fast. It’s like they’ve rehearsed it to within an inch of its life, so it’s very tight, very disciplined. This is Hollywood at its best because it’s smart, savvy, there’s an emotional dynamic to it. It’s… Yeah, they don’t make them like this anymore. They try, but they don’t.”