How Steve Buscemi’s 10 favourite films of all time shaped a new kind of movie star
(Credits: Far Out / Alamy) The American actor, director and former firefighter Steve Buscemi is not your typical movie star.In fact, the long-term admirer of arthouse and independent cinema would likely refute the word ‘star’ altogether. “My favourite review described me as the cinematic equivalent of junk mail,” he once quipped. “I don’t know what that means, but it sounds like a dig.”While Buscemi is arguably best known for working with the likes of Quentin Tarantino and the Coen Brothers, the actor began life in cinema with a debut in 1985 film The Way It Is, directed by Eric Mitchell and produced by No Wave Cinema. It was a lo-fi beginning for a lo-fi type of guy. He couldn’t have been happier. He was raised on the appeal of indie filmmaking.Even in the likes of Reservoir Dogs, Miller’s Crossing and The Big Lebowski, Buscemi has continually attempted to channel his love for independent cinema in his creative projects. In what is arguably the best demonstration of this arriving most prominently when he made his directing debut in 1996 with comedy-drama film Trees Lounge, a picture he created with the modest budget of $1.3 million despite its all-star cast.He had grown up in Brooklyn. His father was a sanitation worker and his mother worked at the Howard Johnson hotel chain. It wasn’t an easy life, and neither was the firefighting career he eventually ventured into. But Buscemi was always surrounded by people and their stories. The cinema he sought out carried a similar sense of realness. These heartfelt tales, filled with the quirks of the human comedy, inspired him to move towards the cathartic world of the arts. He was unconventional, but that seemed fitting. “I don’t tend to think of these characters as losers,” he reflected when he eventually started landing quirky roles. “I like the struggles that people have, people who are feeling like they don’t fit into society, because I still sort of feel that way.”(Credits: Far Out / Miramax / YouTube Still) Reflecting on some of the films that have influenced his vision over the years, Buscemi sat down with the Criterion Collection to list what he considers to be 10 of his favourite films of all time. His selections ring true to his disposition. If he didn’t fit neatly into society, then there’s no doubting these strange classics don’t fit neatly into the Hollywood machine, either. “I guess I’m a sucker for black and white,” Buscemi told Criterion when introducing The Honeymoon Killers as one of his selections.“This 1970 independent classic is from writer/director Leonard Kastle, who took over after Martin Scorsese was let go,” he added. “Based on a true story, it held particular interest for me because the killers at one point decide to retire to suburban Valley Stream, Long Island, the town where I primarily grew up and directed my first film, Trees Lounge.”Stranger than fiction, there are several of these very tangible ties between the supposed surrealness in both the films Buscemi’s has made, the ones he loves, and genuine real, lived experiences. Few people in cinema history have ever embodied the absurdity of reality on the big screen better than Buscemi, and that’s not just borne from his own life, but the films that have occupied it.With a mixture of the old and new, Buscemi includes the likes of Gus Van Sant, Robert Altman, Jules Dassin and more in his wide-ranging list.Buscemi, a big fan of Gus Van Sant, admitted he found it difficult picking just one of his films but opted for My Own Private Idaho: “It’s hard to pick a favourite Gus Van Sant film, but this one has my favourite River Phoenix performance,” he added. “It took me a while to warm up to the story while watching it, but by the end I was loving it. I like when movies sneak up on you that way.”Looking across his selections, there’s no grand statement of taste. As expected with humble old Steve, there’s no canonical heavy-hitters wheeled out for credibility. After all, he’s a big Tom Waits man. Instead, there’s a through-line of comic discomfort, odd ambiguity, and strangely lived-in humanity. Much like his haphazard list, these are films that don’t resolve neatly. They linger in the margins and find puzzling beauty in people who don’t quite ‘fit’, to use the actor’s own words. So, it’s little wonder Buscemi gravitated towards them. He built a career doing much the same. In the process, he liberated the Coen brothers to help establish him as a new kind of film star, a ‘kinda funny looking’ one.Brute Force – Jules Dassin, 1947.Billy Liar – John Schlesinger, 1963.Symbiopsychotaxiplasm – William Greaves, 1968.Salesman – Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin, 1969.The Honeymoon Killers – Leonard Kastle, 1970.A Woman Under the Influence – John Cassavetes, 1974.The Vanishing – George Sluizer, 1988.My Own Private Idaho – Gus Van Sant, 1991.Man Bites Dog – Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Benoit Poelvoorde, 1992. Short Cuts – Robert Altman, 1993.Source: Criterion ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE
