Olympia Dukakis, revered star of stage and screen, stars in A Little Game, a new coming-of-age adventure film currently on VOD and DVD. Each of Dukakis’ five favorite films is a freshly-rated classic (we would expect no less!). Most of the films listed here can be used as a starter pad to launch your own stretch of fine foreign film viewing. Enjoy.
I love the book so much. The fact that in spite of the disasters of life, it asks you to keep choosing life, to risk love and risk caring about your work and risk that. I was very moved by that, really moved by that.
It’s a great movie, Italian, post-Second World War. These are all going to be foreign films.
Miracle of Milan, I can’t even remember the plot, but when you asked me my favorite films, it just hit me again. It’s a story out of the wreckage of the Second World War, and the people finding a way and a reason to go forward. And that’s why it’s called a miracle.
RT: I sense a theme.
I just realized it myself.
This is a fabulous film. I’ve seen it, like, six times.
RT: It’s so beautiful. Have you read the book?
No. The movie is so visual, and all of the different episodes and magical aspects of it make me afraid to.
Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954) 100%
Kurosawa, my God. I saw that film and I left the theater and I thought, “When I grow up I wanna be a samurai.” I just love it, I think it’s great. Kurosawa, you can’t get any better. Do you remember
Ran?
RT: Absolutely.
The scene where there’s fighting and the camera angle is above them, overlooking the battle field. Richard Shickel — the critic, he’s semi-retired — he did a lot of shows on television and bios. He interviewed him. We were talking about Ran one day and he interviewed Kurosawa and asked him about that scene where the battle is happening but you can’t hear it. Kurosawa said the gods don’t hear us. They see us but they don’t really hear us. I found that very powerful.
Jules and Jim (François Truffaut, 1962) 94%
Oh my God, how could I forget it? Jules and Jim. It’s that one with that very famous French actress, [yells at her husband to look up the name] Jeanne Moreau! I had never seen acting by a woman that way. She was so layered and complicated, and she threw things away that other actresses would nurture for a whole film. Do you know when I saw that movie — I saw it by myself — in the middle of it, it was so overwhelming I had to walk back and watch it from the back of the theater. I couldn’t just sit in my chair. It was so wonderfully honest and complex about relationships between men and women. And you saw aspects of her that were really dark that came out, as opposed to the stuff that was coming out back then.
