My movie life
The films that have inspired, terrified, amused and thoroughly upset Michael Collins director Neil Jordan
The first movie i ever saw A Warner Bros movie about giant ants. I must have seen that at a Fairview cinema on the north side of Dublin. It was called Them! These giant ants would climb over dunes and Santa Monica beaches. I was probably about five or six. It was terrifying. I remember the sound of the ants [ does whirring
noise]. The first movie I went back to when making Michael Collins was The
Battle Of Algiers – if anybody makes a political movie about social appeal, they watch that film, don’t they? The film i love that nobody’s heard of
The Saragossa Ma nuscript. I love that movie. I got the narrative structure for The Company Of Wolves from The Saragossa Manuscript. You know, someone walking around and finding a book, and within that book is the story you go into, and within that story is another story... That extraordinary hall of mirrors effect. It’s a very long film. I first saw it in the ’70s. It’s one of those movies that, again, you go, “Whoa, OK, I didn’t know you could do that.”
The film that always makes me cry
Bab e. I’ve probably seen it about eight times and it’s made me cry every time. Tell George Miller that, will you? It’s his best film. Every time he feeds the pig and sings that song: “If I could make a day for you...” I never saw the sequel [Babe: Pig In The City]. People say it’s great, but I didn’t want to destroy my memories of the first
Babe. The most emotional film I’ve ever made is The Butcher Boy. It relates most to me and my childhood.
The film that sc ares me the most Abb ott And Costello Meet
Frankenstein. I saw that when I was a kid and it terrified me like nothing else. They’re reviving the monsters, aren’t they? Hell, tell them I’m available! The Invisible Man is a difficult one, isn’t it? I’m a fan of the James Whale one. My movie, Michael
Collins, is scary in that it’s about the practice of violence, the awfulness of it, and the impossibility to stop it once you’ve started. I watched a ton of gangster movies before I made it. My desert island movie You mean a movie I’d take and watch again and again and again? Maybe La Strada – you know, that Fellini movie? Seeing that, it was the first time that I ever thought movies could be amazing. I was used to seeing films that were westerns or war movies. I just thought there were genres. They were almost like reading a comic strip. When I saw that movie, I was like, “Whoa, I didn’t know you could do this kind of thing.” It was the first Fellini I’d seen. It’s lovely.