“The greatest film ever made”: Roger Corman once named one of his favourite movies
“He was my lifeblood to whatever I thought I was going to be as a person,” actor Jack Nicholson once said, candidly revealing his sentimentality towards Roger Corman, who supported him throughout his entire career. The truth is, to be an influential pioneer of independent cinema, you have to know what it takes to be a great producer while also understanding the power of nurturing those around you – and Corman excelled at both.
Many directors and producers merely dream of leaving a lasting legacy with their artistry, hoping that their creations will inspire many generations to follow. While a hefty handful of figures do succeed at this, Corman’s impact was nothing short of extraordinary, especially considering the vast expanse of names that flourished under his tutelage.
As a result, it’s safe to say that the Hollywood landscape would look immensely different without his contributions. If that’s difficult to imagine, consider the fact that, over the course of his entire career, Corman worked with Ron Howard, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, and James Cameron. He also crossed paths with Nicholson, along with Dennis Hopper, Tommy Lee Jones, Robert De Niro, Sandra Bullock, and many others.
Therefore, there’s a reason why Demme once hailed him “the greatest independent filmmaker the American film industry has ever seen and will probably ever see,” and the many reasons discussed here merely scratch the surface. As someone who became such a prolific force in the industry, it’s interesting to speculate about his own personal favourites in the realm of cinema as we begin to attempt to understand the visionary just a little bit more.
Luckily, he once shared a handful of his most cherished movies in an interview, and some of them are more abstract than you might think – a testament to his unwavering commitment to art, no matter how it may be presented. While he makes sure to include such classics as Orson Welles’ 1941 masterpiece Citizen Kane and Elia Kazan’s 1954 film On the Waterfront, for example, he also made space for James Cameron’s 21st-century box-office sensation Avatar from 2009.
However, Corman’s choice for his all-time favourite is a little different from what one might expect from the king of popcorn cinema, calling Sergei M. Eistenstein’s 1925 movie Battleship Potemkin “the greatest film ever made”.
A pioneering film that introduced the concept of the montage to 20th-century cinema, Eistenstein’s Battleship Potemkin is a seminal piece of motion picture filmmaking, telling the story of the crew of the titular battleship who stage a mutiny amid the Russian Revolution of 1905.
“It was probably the originator of a number of cutting techniques,” Corman explained, “The ‘Odessa steps’ sequence, with the baby carriage rolling own the steps at the same time the troops are marching down the steps, is still one of the most powerful montage sequences I’ve ever seen”.