Tahar Rahim's Five Favorite Films

I’m a big fan of the New Hollywood wave, a very big fan of this period. I think it’s the best period of movies ever. This one is a very specific one because it’s an incredible story of someone who is an antihero. He’s got all the flaws, when you think about it. It can read as a racist, in a way, who could be in love with young girls and totally crazy, who’s trying to kill the president. So he’s got all the flaws, and yet he’s still an ordinary man, you see.

It tells a lot about the way society can create heroes, because at the end of the movie, he’s saving this young girl from evil, from the streets of New York. He wants to clean the streets of New York; that’s his obsession. He finally does it, but you don’t know if he does it for him, for her, whatever. He does it. He quenched his thirst for violence. At the end of the movie, he turned out to be an American hero. It’s crazy what it tells about the media, about society.

And the performances are stellar. The movie is incredible, the way it’s shot. We get to see New York in the ’70s. Because I always say that movies are testimonies for the next generations when they’re well-made classics like this one. When I discovered it — I might have been 17 or 18 — and I could tell my friends what New York looked like in the ’70s. It was right. It was true. They were in the streets, shooting people, the random people who were walking in the streets and buildings and cars and the way they would talk. The whole thing blew me away.

Plus, the script is incredible, the way it’s written. You know, it’s this new period that that looks like a little bit of the New Wave in France. They met the concept of going out there to film reality and people. The way the New Hollywood turned it, it’s better for me, because they weren’t afraid to create antiheroes, to write bigger stories, and to make an x-ray of American society.

I could talk about this movie for hours. You know, the first time I discovered Jodie Foster starting her career; she was absolutely awesome. And of course, Robert De Niro, who stays the best actor ever for me, to me. The ’70s, in a way, they created some codes of acting that never moved from there.

Number two, still New Hollywood. It’s Scarecrow by Jerry Schatzberg. I love what we call here in French kind of a… I don’t know if it’s the same expression in America, but buddy movies. But in this one, I remember when I first watched it, there’s this opening with this road, empty road, windy, and two guys who are hitchhiking, and they’re waiting for someone to pick them up. What’s happening is they talk without a single word. This might be the most beautiful encounter of two characters I’ve seen.

At this moment, they don’t even talk. There’s not a lot of action, but you can tell who’s who, what type of character they are, their identities, in a way. You see Gene Hackman is grumpy. He doesn’t really want to watch him. You can feel that he is ready to jump on him and beat him. The other one’s trying to just, in a way, find a father. That’s sort of the whole movie, to me. He’s trying to make him laugh, using his own skills, all he’s got to communicate. To go from The Godfather to this character, Al Pacino, it’s crazy what he’s doing in this movie. It’s the opposite of The Godfather.

At some point, they start a story together. I remember that they walk through life, and yeah, they have a purpose and they’re going to help each other. It’s about being dependent on someone, but in a good way, because they became friends. I think that Al Pacino’s character is looking for a father. He’s very interesting, but he’s still a kid. He’s a kid that has to be an adult, because he’s got a son, and he’s going to meet him for the first time. He doesn’t know what to do. He just bought a present that he keeps with him all the way along. The poetry of this present is amazing.

The ending, when he finally meets his ex-wife and sees his son, and she’s like, “You’re not going to tell him that you’re his daddy.” She starts to ruin him. You see a mother being rude with her kid. That’s where he fell into despair, into madness. The arc of his character is sad, but incredible.

I think in English it’s 400 Blows. What an incredible movie. Classic. I mean, I saw it a long time ago when I was a kid. It was beautiful. I liked it, but I didn’t really know what it was talking about. Then I watched it again 10 years ago. When you put it back in its context in the ’60s or ’70s — I don’t know exactly — it’s so brand new. Watching a kid wandering in the streets of Paris and making his own 400 blows, and being a young adult. It was pretty amazing. It brought me back to my childhood. It felt good to watch this movie.

And it tells a lot about French society at that time — working class people; how a relationship between a man and a woman was, in a way; what people know, but don’t say, between the lines. There’s a lot of this in this movie, between the mom and the son and the dad and the son. It’s incredible. I loved it. There’s this pure innocence in this movie as well. The ending on the beach with fireworks… It’s beautiful.

What a great movie. I saw it at the video tech, not in a movie theater. I didn’t know what I was about to see. I didn’t expect that this movie would be so good. I remember I discovered Oldboy, and I was like, “Okay, we got real movies over there.” I wanted to know more, and I watched this movie.

It starts like a… You see two detectives that don’t really seem clever, and then the guy from the street, from the big city, is going to meet people from the countryside. The shock, culturally, between those two different roots, in a way, is very interesting. It’s like, “Okay. Whether it’s in America, France, or Korea, it’s kind of the same thing.”

The ending is so unexpected. I was like, “What?” And it’s the first time ever that I saw that in a movie, in a thriller like this. The whole movie is built on this investigation — the structure of the movie, as well — so when you reach the climax, you need an answer, and it doesn’t give you an answer. It’s not meant to have a sequel. But I think it’s so clever to do this. Plus, the movie’s protected by its own true story. They never found the right guy, the perpetrators, the killer.

I remember the cinematography is so good. So good. Do you remember the scene when the cops are arresting the young man, thinking that he’s the killer? The father comes and he’s like, “No, it’s my son. He did nothing.” And they start to fight and there’s the cops and this father and his son being arrested, and it’s all in slow motion, except for the sound; the sound runs normally, which is incredible. You’re like, “Oh, it’s the first time I see it.” Usually it’s slow motion music, silence. Now you’ve got the slow motion shot, and the sound is a direct sound. People are screaming and you hear them fighting. It’s incredible. Like, “Okay, wow. What a director.” He did that before [David] Fincher.

Also, in this movie, it’s very serious, but at the same time, there’s a comic layer. It’s funny, sometimes. It’s a lot of poetry.

The Truman Show, Peter Weir, because man, it was ahead of its time, like crazy. I think this movie came out in the ’90s, 10 or 15 years before social media, before reality shows. I mean, that’s so avant garde. He understood so many things, Peter Weir, about the world at that time, what would be the outcome. If you just watch it again, for example, tonight or tomorrow, whatever, you’re going to go crazy. You’re going to go like, “Okay. I mean, did he time travel?”

Plus, you see the innocence of Jim Carrey, who’s got an amazing part, and see his deception. It’s kind of a coming-of-age movie as well, in a way. He’s a kid, very innocent. At some point, he’s going to have to get to the real life, life of adults. No more fantasy, no more lies. It’s just the cruelty of the world.