Do You Follow Me?

On my Laptop table, below my mouse, I have a notebook on which at any time you will always find few lists. Right now, I have lists of Classics, Hitchcock and Ingmar Bergman movies. Have you ever followed someone? I don’t mean following someone physically. I meant following an actor or actress or director? In my case, this remains single most prolific source of adding films into my various queues and these lists on that notebook help me do just that

It all started with Julia Roberts after watching Pretty Woman(1990) and My Best Friend’s Wedding(1997) and she still remains to be one of my favorite actresses. Since then I have done this for many actresses like Amy Adams after Doubt(2008)(I have watched all of her last 10 films except Moonlight Serenade(2009)), Rachel McAdams after State of Play(2009), Audrey Hepburn after Roman Holiday(1953)(I am simply in awe of her beauty. Give me a film with Audrey Hepburn and I will watch it regardless of everything else) and I have been doing the same recently with Ingrid Bergman after Casablanca(1942) and Notorious(1946). Audrey Tautou has been on my radar since Amelie(2001) and Priceless(2006). It has been a slow progress about it since I find it little difficult to get hold of her films with subtitles. Netflix is turning out to be good source on this front lately.

Funny thing is sometimes you don’t follow someone intentionally but then one day you realize that is exactly what you were doing. It happened in case of Christopher Nolan, though having just 10 films (I am not sure JUST is a proper word here if you know these 10 films. So don’t take it too literally) under his resume helped a lot. But it struck me the most for Sidney Lumet. After his recent death, I read a lot about him and how great a director he was. Since I didn’t know much about him, I once checked him out on IMDb just out of curiosity. I was amazed that I have seen like 8 of his films and I didn’t even know it’s Him. I mean I don’t know how did I not know that he directed 12 Angry Men(1957), Dog Day Afternoon(1975), Network(1976) and The Verdict(1982) and many more? I was just naïve I guess.

However, if you want to really start following someone now, it really makes much more sense to follow a Director than performer. As many critics say and I agree that an actor or an actress is much more prone to do a bad movie than director. My experience with Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Billy Wilder suggests the same (I hope to add Alfred Hitchcock and Ingmar Bergman to this list pretty soon). Also, even without knowing it, you are also following an actor or actress as well. Like, if you are going after Scorsese, you are also watching a lot of De Niro films and DiCaprio recently or you are getting a lot of Jack Lemmon if you have seen Billy Wilder a lot.

You probably have noticed that I have never followed an actor. In my defense, I will again say that I did not do this intentionally. And as I said earlier, I was getting enough of Tom Hanks and Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio through their directors. However, I promise to undo this very soon by making my own list for Humphrey Bogart and Jimmy Stewart as soon as I have something in my pocket for Hitchcocks and Bergmans.