Lawrence Kasdan names his five favourite movies of all time
When we think of the original Star Wars movies and the mind behind the iconic sci-fi franchise, the large majority of people will think of George Lucas, the creator of the series and the director of the first film back in 1977. Whilst this is, of course, true, not enough credit goes to the screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan who co-wrote the screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back in 1980 before penning the final film in the trilogy, Return of the Jedi, on his own in 1983.
This wasn’t Kasdan’s only achievement either, with the screenwriter also creating the scripts for the iconic Steven Spielberg adventure flick Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981 and the sensual erotic drama Body Heat in 1981 with Kathleen Turner and William Hurt. Back in 2012, Kasdan took the time to sit down with Rotten Tomatoes to discuss his favourite movies of all time, revealing his fine taste for quality cinema.
First on his list is the 1964 war satire Dr. Strangelove, directed by the great Stanley Kubrick, a film that follows a war room of generals who are pathetically attempting to avoid nuclear war. “To me, maybe the funniest movie ever made,” Kasdan says of the film, “Huge variety in the styles of the movie. Some of it’s shot like cinéma vérité documentary. Some of it’s very stylized. The mise en scène changes radically”.
The 1947 Jacques Tourneur movie Out of the Past, starring Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas, is the next movie on his list, calling it his “favourite film noir” that he admits to having ripped off during the making of Body Heat. Continuing, he adds: “Mitchum is spectacular. Jane Greer, who was 21 years old or something, and seems like she’s 35, she’s a great femme fatale. Kirk Douglas is in the third lead, as the villain, and he’s beautiful — you can see why he’s gonna be a star in a matter of years; a couple of years later he was a big star, and he’s hilarious”.
The classic Howard Hawks western Red River takes his third spot, with the John Wayne-starring movie telling the story of a cattle drive gone awry. “Great Western. John Wayne, Monty Clift — Monty Clift couldn’t be more wrong for a Western, and yet it totally works,” Kasdan states.
Adding: “You can’t ask for a better Western. It talks about the whole opening of Texas, and it talks about the relationship between men. It talks about the dynamics of leadership, talks about betrayal. It’s Shakespearian, really, without any pretention. Pure Hawks”.
His penultimate choice is the Warren Beatty movie Shampoo, a 1975 comedy romance that tells the story of a hairdresser and his many past girlfriends. “Shampoo is important to me,” Kasdan states, “It’s a brilliant script, a portrait of LA at a certain time and the United States when we were going through a spasm of political activity that was very discouraging — it ends with the election of Nixon and Agnew. It’s hilarious, it’s sexy”.
Lawrence Kasdan’s favourite movies:
- Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
- Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947)
- Red River (Howard Hawks, 1948)
- Shampoo (Hal Ashby, 1975)
- Yojimbo (Akira Kurosawa, 1961)
The final movie on his list is the Akira Kurosawa samurai classic Yojimbo from 1961, starring Toshiro Mifune. One of Kurosawa’s most well-known movies, Kasdan calls the film “the most entertaining movie ever made,” adding: “Kurosawa’s flat-out entertaining. He said ‘I wanna make a movie that’s delicious enough to eat,’ and that’s the way it is — it’s the most entertaining movie you can possibly think of”.