Fun Fridays – Director’s Favourite Films – John Turturro

Hello Film Doctor friends.

This Fun Friday sees the release of “Fading Gigolo” – a new comedy of life and love, starring, written and directed by the versatile John Turturro.

The Actor/Director has shared numerous thoughts and insights about the project so far, but we were interested to know which films influence him the most.

Below is a list of Turturro’s cinema picks – six favourites, with comments from Turturro himself (originally published on Rotten Tomatoes, April 2014):

• “The Godfather” (1972, dir. Francis Ford Coppola) – “I guess definitely I would say ‘The Godfather’ is one of my favorite films. It’s beautifully written and beautifully shot and performed… it’s very entertaining, but it also has a lot of layers to it. It has a lot of fantastic actors in the film and in the script. It’s one of those films that works on many levels, and I think that the movies that stay with you, [they] work on many levels.” 

• “Nights of Cabiria” (1957, dir. Federico Fellini) – “It’s a film I look at again and again. I’m a big Fellini fan.” 

• “Casablanca” (1942, dir. Michael Curtiz) –  “[…] would definitely have to put Casablanca on there because I think it’s such a great, entertaining film. It’s so witty and funny and it influenced so many people, including Woody Allen… I remember watching it when I was a kid and thinking like, ‘Wow, this is just perfect,’ so I would put that in there.”

• “On the Waterfront” (1954, dir. Elia Kazan) – “I remember I broke my leg when I was in eighth grade and I actually taped it on my audio cassette. I taped the entire movie, so I know a lot of the movie by heart. So, these are movies that just have had big influences on you at different times of your life.” 

• “La Grande Illusion” (1937, dir. Jean Renoir) – “Jean Renoir’s films have such a tremendous intelligence and humanity, and there’s all this great depth and there’s this great joie de vivre — there’s this great joy in the film. It’s almost like commedia dell’arte, but then it exposes something really deep down.”

• • “Seven Samurai” (1954, dir. Akira Kurosawa) – “I’m a huge Jean Renoir fan, and I’m a huge Kurosawa fan too, and those guys made movies that — that’s as good as it gets.”

And the Film Doctor team can’t miss the opportunity to pay dues to the movie’s other star, Mr. Woody Allen, and revisit his favourite films – take a look!