The world-renowned linguist and anarchist Noam Chomsky may not watch many films today. Michel Gondry once said “he never watches movies” during a interview for his 2013 animated documentary Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?: An Animated Conversation with Noam Chomsky. However Noam and his first wife Carol (who passed away in 2008) were at one time self described “movie addicts”. I shot Noam a quick email asking about his favourite films.
1. Salt of the Earth
Chomsky has over the years mentioned this film as a favourite and in our correspondence wrote “a rare film with immediate (and compelling) political content.”
Chomsky then mentioned his taste was mainly French and Italy films but didn’t name any by title so I replied a list of a few Italian and French classics from the ‘40s and ‘60s.
2. The Bicycle Thief
Chomsky once said City Lights was the only film he saw twice but admitted in our correspondence he saw The Bicycle Thief “many times”.
3. La Strada
4. City Lights
Chomsky singled out City Lights had praise for Charlie Chaplin in general. I asked if he knew about Chaplin’s own anarchist sympathies, he didn’t know about his politics at the time “except about his hounding by US authorities.”
psychotroniccinema.com 