7 Dec 2023

Willem Dafoe’s Closet Picks

The acclaimed actor shares his deep connection to Onibaba, praises Isabelle Huppert and her performance in The Piano Teacher, recalls Gate of Flesh ’s influence on the Wooster Group, and selects a few of his collaborations with Wes Anderson and Martin Scorsese.

Willem Dafoe: everything they reached for, and whose taste is nearest

choices

12

11 single, 1 box set

single films

11

chosen on their own

box sets

1

one choice, many films

films reached

14

the same visit, box sets opened

Criterion's own upload · on criterion.com

This visit as a strip, a cell for each choice: paler the older the film, indigo for a box set, which is one cell however many films it holds. The order is the order Criterion's own page lists them in, which is probably but not provably the order they came off the shelf.

226 Onibaba 1964 235 The Leopard 1963 314 Pickpocket 1959 285 Ashes and Diamonds 1958 298 Gate of Flesh 1964 SET 3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman 666 The Devil’s Backbone 2001 1084 Mirror 1975 894 The Piano Teacher 2001 140 8½ 1963 70 The Last Temptation of Christ 1988 300 The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou 2004

single film, with its spine number box set

	Chose	Director	Year	Taken by
1	Onibaba	Kaneto Shindo	1964	5
2	The Leopard	Luchino Visconti	1963	9
3	Pickpocket	Robert Bresson	1959	9
4	Ashes and Diamonds	Andrzej Wajda	1958	3
5	Gate of Flesh	Seijun Suzuki	1964	2
6	3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman box set, 3 films			9
7	The Devil’s Backbone	Guillermo del Toro	2001	4
8	Mirror	Andrei Tarkovsky	1975	11
9	The Piano Teacher	Michael Haneke	2001	8
10	8½	Federico Fellini	1963	18
11	The Last Temptation of Christ	Martin Scorsese	1988	3
12	The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou	Wes Anderson	2004	2

How far across film history it reaches

Where this haul sits in film history single films 1958 to 2004, box sets 1950 to 1954

3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman

a single film, at its year a box set, across the years of its films the collection, by decade

The axis is the same 1920 to 2030 on every visit page, so a haul that stayed inside one decade looks like one. A box set is drawn across the years of the films inside it, which is a range of release dates and not a claim about the set. Nothing here is in the order the choices were made: displayed position moves film year by a fifth of one percent of its variance, which is not a slope worth drawing.

How long this haul is

Its 14films run 27.3 hours. The median visit runs 19.2 hours, over the 375 whose every runtime is on record.

That is 136.4 minutes of film for each of its 12 choices, counting a box set as the one choice it was. Across the 375 visits with a complete total, the median is 136.4 minutes.

How unusual this haul was

Its 12 choices had been taken by 6.92 visits each on average, counting a box set as one thing. Every one of them has been taken by somebody else too. The least-picked was The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, taken by 2 visits in total.

This visit reached the work of Guillermo del Toro, through The Devil’s Backbone, who has been in this closet too. Not one of those reaches is returned.

On Vimeo · On criterion.com