Questions and (some) answers

Some new Enemy art, from the New Yorker and the studio:






Amid the surprising riches of the Enemy promotion, this unexpected treat just popped up. Taped in November of last year, here's a 90-minute Career Conversation with Jake Gyllenhaal, presented by SAG-AFTRA:



Ninety minutes of Jake talking about his career and his family and friends. From road trips to cornrows, the convo runs the gamut. There's some babble in there, but lots of insight and humor. A real treat.

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From an interview with Salon:

I look at movies like dreams in a way. We have them. There’s something to be learned there. Some people might say they are these things at night that ultimately just keep your neurons going and keep your brain warm. Other people might say they’re open for interpretation. Other people have many ideas. But, to me, I think movies are like that. When you wake up from a dream sometimes you’re moved, sometimes you’re terrified, sometimes you have no idea what happened. And I like all of those things that happen during it. But most of the time you wake up and go, “Wait a second. This just happened when I was asleep. But I don’t know what it’s about.” And I like that about movies and I think you sit in the dark, much like you do when you’re dreaming and you experience something. So I am thrilled by the open ends and the questions. I think they’re what it’s all about.

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Jake's Five Favorite Movies, via Rotten Tomatoes:


La Strada (Federico Fellini, 1954; 97% Tomatometer)

The next I would say is La Strada because, well, do I really have to say? I feel like it's sort of self-explanatory. Like [laughs] Giulietta Masina, I mean every performance, but particularly the last scene in the movie, with Anthony Quinn and just being on the beach, and everything about that movie is beautiful. And there's something always about his films that, knowing that audio was recorded post shooting the film -- I'm pretty sure that's true with that movie -- just to know, in a way, if it is true, it's just to know that there are two sort of performances happening simultaneously. You can see and hear that. And I love that idea and what skill and sort of the presence to this day that movie has. And it's also personally really resonant because my father said after he saw that movie, it was what made him want to make movies, and when I finally saw it when I was a teenager, I understood why. So it inevitably has a resonance beyond the brilliance of the movie itself.

So it was just something that was prominent in your family, growing up?

La Strada? Yeah when I was an infant we were just talking about it. [laughs] No, I just think it sort of tied to that. I mean, I just wonder sometimes if my father hadn't seen that movie and been so moved by it, you know, would he have met my mother? Would my sister have been born? You know, there's a lot of "would-haves" and eventually all of us have found our way into the movie business, so you know, that's just an interesting thing. And you know, you never know how a movie will inspire someone and how it will lead not just one life but many to come. Sort of an interesting idea.