Elijah Wood

"“It’s an amazing book but as a music fan, and as a guy, it feels so tailored to me and anyone like me. It’s about a guy who’s searching for relationships and understanding himself. It’s about music and passion for music, and there’s all sorts of wonderful references throughout. It seems like a book so perfectly suited to me as a person.”"

"Oh, oh, Night of the Hunter. That’s just a film that… It was actually recommended to me by Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson’s wife. I think it’s her favorite film of all time. I’d never really seen anything like it because it’s kind of a film noir set in the South. The story, it’s about a family who are terrorized by a con-man. Robert Mitchum was an incredible actor — the original Cape Fear is another incredible performance by him — but it’s such a slimy performance in this film. He’s such a great manipulator and tells tall tales. And it’s famous because he’s got these tattoos on his knuckles of “love” and “hate” and it actually is a conduit for a really great story that he repeats throughout the film. The cinematography’s incredible; it’s just like all blacks and whites and hard shadows and lots of silhouettes along the river. It’s just a stunning, a stunning film! It’s really good. Talking about these movies makes me want to see these movies again. [laughing] They’re so good!"

"Léon. Or, as it’s known in the United States, The Professional. But in France it’s called Léon. It’s so weird because for years I’d always called it The Professional and then for some reason it switched in my mind. I mean, that movie was an amazing blend of an international eye within the context of an American… That movie still feels extremely international, certainly with its lead actor but also the way that it was shot and made. But at the heart of that film is this incredible relationship between a cold blooded killer and a young girl. And it’s still so effective and so powerful. I think one of my favorite sequences in the film was when the two of them are kind of like, it’s like this beautiful montage of their relationship as they’re, like, cleaning the apartment and these sort of things that they’re doing together, this really adorable, emotional relationship. And it’s all cut to “Venus as a Boy” by Björk. It’s such a great sequence and there’s such whimsy to their connection. And of course the movie goes into a really dark and awfully sort of tragic place, you know, and it’s really about a man whose sole purpose in life is to be cold and calculated, but it’s all about this girl finding his humanity. It’s just such a beautiful film."

"Harvey is one of my all-time favorite films. This movie I saw when I was younger and I feel like it struck a chord with me, then, probably primarily because of Jimmy Stewart’s performance and the kind of magic that is this character that he refers to that we don’t see as an audience. But I think… I loved it and I’ve watched it many times since, and it’s a movie that has gotten more profound for me as I’ve gotten older, and I feel I’ve gotten different things out of it every time. It’s a movie whose construct is kind of up for interpretation, I think. You could easily make an argument that his character of Elwood Dowd is a drunk, for instance, and, you know, Harvey is a manifestation of that. You could say he’s a man who has given up on reality and, therefore, he’s happier, and Harvey is a manifestation of that. It’s such a beautiful film and there’s such humanity in the film and there’s something so enlightened — regardless of what is actually genuinely going on with Elwood’s character — there’s something so enlightened about him that everyone else is actually more insane than he is, and that always really struck a chord with me."

"Jean-Pierre Jeunet is a filmmaker that I’ve since followed, you know, throughout his career and I think he’s one of my favorites and a kind of, you know, a very distinctive voice in France, but that film still I think is probably my favorite of his. I feel like he kind of almost returned to form a little bit with Micmacs. Micmacs really reminded me of Delicatessen in terms of its vibe. But Delicatessen is just, there’s a great amount of comedy to it, the characters are so bizarre and so well-drawn. The world is so strange, it’s not totally relatable. It’s very funny. It’s very dark. I remember when I saw that movie, I’d never seen anything like it. And I think by the time I saw Delicatessen for the first time, City of Lost Children had already come and gone. But Delicatessen was the first thing that I’d seen. And , you know, from an art direction standpoint, I think I was also so unbelievably impressed, because it was him and his partner, and I can’t remember his partner’s name who was also kind of like his art director."

"Easily one of my favorite kind of genre/exploitation films. Japanese film. Have you seen the film?"