Kevin Smith Has Seen This Classic Film More Than Any Other. And No, It Isn’t ‘Porky’s’
As we’ve mentioned before, The Criterion Collection is the home video company that releases high quality (but definitely not cheap) DVD and Blu-ray editions of those films that they have deemed worthy. Sadly, their announcement that Kindergarten Cop had joined the collection was just a cruel April Fool’s Day joke.
Criterion also regularly invites filmmakers and actors to take items from their office’s closet (the one full of discs, not the one containing mops and window cleaner). The Criterion Closet videos are a big hit with film fans who want to hear, say, Charlie Day talking about how It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia inadvertently ripped off François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows.
This week, the closet hosted Kevin Smith, whose Chasing Amy was released by Criterion (and whose Yoga Hosers definitely wasn’t). The director took the opportunity to shout out his favorite classic films, some of which were more surprising than others. For starters, Smith singled out Howard Hawks’ rapid-fire dialogue-filled His Girl Friday, calling it “a very influential film for me, even though it features old-timey people.”
Speaking of old-timey people, his next pick was… Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane? Hearing that His Girl Friday was an influence on Smith isn’t a huge shocker, but it's a little harder to see a connection between Welles’ masterpiece and Smith’s filmography. “Citizen Kane (is) one of my favorite films, if not my absolute favorite film,” Smith explained. “Probably the film I’ve watched the most in life.”
Seemingly anticipating that some Criterion fans might be skeptical of that assertion, he added, “Isn’t that weird? Like, you’re like, ‘I don’t know, based on your work, I would have thought Porky’s.’”
Smith did point out one similarity between his cinematic output and Welles’: Both Citizen Kane and Clerks were shot in black and white. Unless there’s a scene in Citizen Kane in which Charles Foster Kane complains about how many blow jobs his girlfriend has given that we’ve forgotten about, the similarities end there.
Smith also paid tribute to two other movies that were instrumental in his filmmaking career, including Robert Townsend’s showbiz satire Hollywood Shuffle.
While the content of the film didn’t necessarily inspire Smith, Townsend’s unusual funding strategy did. “He talked about using credit cards to pay for the movie,” Smith recalled. “Years later, I would use that information. I’ve never met Robert Townsend, but he’s one of my absolute heroes.” (Although Smith didn’t take any of Townsend’s other brilliant budget-conscious strategies, such as buying his crew members UCLA T-shirts in order to obtain student discounts on equipment and film without permits.)
Smith also noted that Richard Linklater’s Slacker is the movie that first inspired him to ever attempt to make his own independent film. “This movie changed my life,” Smith proclaimed. “If you’re just like ‘I fucking hate Kevin Smith, 30 years of terrible movies, I can’t believe Criterion (released) Chasing Amy’ — blame Richard Linklater.”
