Right before Baltimore's Matt Porterfield, the director of the acclaimed independent film "Hamilton," flew to Europe to show his even-better "Putty Hill" in Copenhagen and then Lisbon, he discussed his latest picture for an interview that will run before the movie's regional premiere at the Maryland Film Festival.
Having just put together a list of my favorite films, I couldn't resist asking Porterfied about the movies that meant the most to him. Here's what he came up with:
"David Lynch. For some reason I ate up everything of his I saw -- and I would try to see everything of his I could. I've always been a bit of a romantic. So films like 'Wild at Heart' have stayed with me for so many years... there's a sensibility there, a certain openness to the spirit world. I love the way he captures air or fire -- the elements -- and gets at what is between the lines and outside of the narrative. He allows his characters to communicate through means other than dialogue or the other ways characters traditionally communicate with each other. Not just in 'Wild at Heart' but also in 'Blue Velvet,' 'Mulholland Dr.' -- and 'Twin Peaks,' that was huge for me. Even 'The Straight Story' feels different but uses those same techniques." (That's Laura Elena Harring and Naomi Watts in 'Mulholland Dr.," above.)
Porterfield names Jean-Luc Godard and Robert Bresson as two filmmakers he admires. But he grew to love them after studying the craft of movies.
Most of his core choices are closer to home: "I really connected wth Richard Linklater's 'Dazed and Confused': me and my friends would go to Towson Commons every week, get stoned on the rooftop level of the parking lot, in the open air, and go to see that movie, as a ritual. When I met Richard Linklater and told him that, he reacted as if it wasn't the first time someone had told him such a story. Me and my friends went for 'Pulp Fiction' in much the same way. And Tony Scott's 'True Romance' [from a Tarantino script] -- I loved Partricia Arquette in that movie."
He knew "Dudes," with Jon Cryer, wasn't very good, but he says he'd see anything that featured Flea, from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He liked his fair share of 1980s midnight movies, like "Suburbia," "Liquid Sky," and "Repo Man." He found he had a yen for road movies -- he got a charge from "Thelma and Louise." He also fell for Wim Wenders' "Wings of Desire." And Martin Bell's artfully photographed documentary about Seattle street kids, "Streetwise," haunts him still and has influenced his own movies.
Thinking about his favorite films, he muses, "Even when they're very romantic, their protagonists are outside the mainstream, and they deal with existential issues and crises of personality."
As do "Hamilton" and "Putty Hill."