Re: Bruce's filmmaker choices (we writers reject the word "auteur" when it applies to directors. Where were they when we were sitting in a room, staring at a blank page, conjuring something out of nothing? No film is the work of one man...but don't get me started...):
Chaplin: I must admit he is a serious gap in my otherwise sterling film education. I've seen lots of his shorts, some of his features, but not nearly enough to pick one. I can tell you my favourite Chaplin moment however. A photo of a woman and a Dear John letter sit on a table. Chaplin stands next to them, back to us, his body wracked with heaving, weeping convulsions. Then he turns around...he's not weeping at all. He's joyously shaking a martini pitcher, his body convulsed in celebratory laughter.
Keaton: THE GENERAL. Again, in the arena of silents, I have more knowledge than actual experience.
Von Sternberg: This is easy. THE SCARLET EMPRESS. The most giddily surreal film ever made. Wonderfully bizarre piece of film-making. In glorious black and white!
Polanski: CHINATOWN
Hitchcock: NOTORIOUS....I'm also fond of REBECCA, but that owes as much to Selznick as Hitchcock, to say nothing of Ms. DuMaurier.
Capra: The obvious choice, of course, would be IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. But because of its overkill showings during it's public domain years, I haven't watched it for awhile. And I am rather fond of the charms of MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN & MEET JOHN DOE, with Gary Cooper...perhaps the best film actor ever. ARSENIC & OLD LACE is one of the few times knock-down farce works brilliantly on film. And IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT still goes down real easy.
STURGES: The easy answer is everything. But if I had to pick, it would probably be CHRISTMAS IN JULY and PALM BEACH STORY with one of my favourite actresses of all time, Mary Astor ("I grow on people...like moss.")
