The “genius” movie Andrew Garfield watches once a year: “So inspiring and shocking to me”
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Academy Award nominee Andrew Garfield honed his acting skills from a young age, starring in several local theatre productions that instilled a love of performance within him. To take one’s passion into a profession is difficult in its own right, but to become a bona fide Hollywood actor is one of the steepest transitions from hobby to career that most can make.
That said, it wasn’t until 2005 that he landed his first screen role, appearing in the teen comedy show Sugar Rush as the lead character Kim’s weird neighbour.
His career began to pick up speed as the years progressed, although 2010 was easily the most important for the actor. Garfield landed roles in Never Let Me Go and The Social Network, the latter establishing him as future Hollywood royalty.
From there, he became Spider-Man, starring in three movies as the superhero, most recently 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home. Garfield has appeared in several other acclaimed movies in the last few years, such as Hacksaw Ridge, Under the Silver Lake, The Eyes of Tammy Faye and Tick, Tick…Boom!.
The actor might not have an extensive list of credits, but his incredible knack for acting has allowed him to stand out in every production, all of which he seems to pick well. Inspired by his own favourite performances and movies, Garfield has risen to become one of modern Hollywood’s most recognisable faces.
In an interview with A.frame, he selected some of his favourite movies, revealing a film he watches “once a year” because it is “so inspiring”. Garfield was referring to The Deer Hunter, released in 1978. He explained, “The fact that that film exists is so inspiring and shocking to me. Because the first hour is all setup.”
“The first hour is this kind of languorous look at this friend group and the culture that they come from, and it feels like a documentary,” Garfield added. “It feels like we are watching lives unfold and people existing together.” The impact of the 1978 film cannot be quantified. The people of USA were still recovering from the disappointment of the Vietnam War, and this elegiac epic about a group of returning veterans came at the perfect time
The Deer Hunter follows several working-class friends, played by Robert De Niro, John Cazale and John Savage, whose lives are forever altered by their experiences of the Vietnam War. Directed by Michael Cimino, the movie has been highly praised for decades, and it ultimately won multiple awards, including ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’ at the Academy Awards.
De Niro said, “I liked the story and the dialogue. I just thought it was a terrific script. It was so simple and it seemed so real to me. The characters spoke to me. I liked that they didn’t say much, that there wasn’t anything that was condescending or patronising toward them.”
Garfield greatly admires the performances in the film, calling it “some of the best modern film acting that exists.”
He added, “The way that they create the reality of their relationships and the reality of the moment—from the Russian roulette scene to the wedding scene—it felt like a bar. A bar of storytelling, a bar of acting to me, and a level of filmmaking that was so epic, so sweeping and so personal and so mysterious.”
The movie is often labelled as one of the greatest films ever made and one of De Niro’s finest performances, coming at the height of his fame in the 1970s. Garfield elucidated, “It’s one that I will revisit once a year, just to luxuriate in the genius of the artistry of every single department in that film.”
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