I’m a film buff, and a human being. Not always in that order. My initiation into the wonders of films began when I was about 11 years old, when I would go to the local cinema by myself on a regular basis. Films I remember seeing include the Western Bite The Bullet starring Gene Hackman and Candice Bergen, the Charles Bronson film Breakheart Pass and the Walt Disney film Snowball Express. I also remember seeing Diamonds Are Forever.
My favourite directors as at this moment in time (in no particular order) are: Billy Wilder, Orson Welles, Andrei Tarkovsky, Aleksei German, Alfred Hitchcock, Luis Bunuel, Wojciech Has, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Ernst Lubitsch, Akira Kurosawa, Sam Fuller, Stanley Kubrick, Jacques Rivette. However this is not set in stone.
I don’t have any favourite actors as I am more interested in directors, since it is the director who has ultimate responsibility for the artistic vision of the film.
My favourite films are also not set in stone, although in general terms one could say that my favourite films are those that I find the most provocative, visionary, entertaining or exciting. If a film can tick ALL those boxes then that is the pinnacle of film-making, to my mind.
So with those caveats in mind and at this moment in time, my favourite films include (in no particular order): The Seven Samurai, North By Northwest, Citizen Kane, Mirror, Andrei Rublev, The Exterminating Angel, The Saragossa Manuscript, Shock Corridor, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Paths of Glory, Napoleon (1927), The General, Ace In The Hole, Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, A Man Escaped, Hard To Be A God, The Night of the Hunter, The Godfather 1 and 2. And so on.
I’m not one of those people who thinks any specific film is the “greatest ever made”. Any number of films could be deemed “great”: great formally, great thematically, great philosophically, great in terms of script/photography/acting.
Finally, my name is Stuart and I am based in Manchester in the UK.