No stranger to movies, Sir Elton John is often one to dip his toe into new creative ground. His colourful spirit makes the films that inspire him all the more noteworthy and intriguing.
In 2011, Sir Elton was involved with the animated comedy Gnomeo and Juliet, which represented something of a passion project for the musician, who took on an executive-producer role for the project and lent it many of his biggest songs. He collaborated with Lady Gaga for the featured duet Hello, Hello, too.
Upon the release of the Shakespeare-meets-Gnome crossover, Sir Elton discussed his five favourite films of all time in an interview with Rotten Tomatoes.
But one “incredible” movie in particular stands out to him. Sir Elton first went on to discuss his favourite gangster movie – and it wasn’t genre classic The Godfather, but rather it’s sequel, The Godfather Part II.
On Francis Ford Coppola’s second gangster epic, he said: “Just riveting. It’s just incredible. At that time, there weren’t usually sequels to films, and when they did Godfather II, when they said they were going to do Godfather II, I groaned.”
Today it’s rare for films not to get a series of sequels, so it may be hard for some movie fans to imagine when this was a novelty. It could even be said that The Godfather Part II -up inadvertently spawned some of the souless cash-grabs that have followed since then.
Whether the 1972 original or the 1974 sequel is the better film is a debate which will rage forever. But for Sir Elton, there’s a clear winner. “It was better, I think, than Godfather I,” he said. “I think it’s an amazing, amazing piece of filmmaking. He was an amazing director, Coppola.”
Sir Elton’s second choice was a Hollywood Golden Age classic, All About Eve starring Bette Davis, Anne Baxter and George Sanders. He said: “I just think the dialogue in that film is incredible and so brilliant, and I never get fed up with watching it.”
For his third selection, the Tiny Dancer songwriter opted for another classic – but perhaps not one you’d expect. “It frightens the s*** out of me,” Sir Elton said of horror classic The Exorcist.
“I remember going to see it in London. I went with a friend – and I said: ‘Well, that wasn’t too bad after all, was it?’ And we both said: ‘Well, I don’t want to go home quite yet.’ So, we went out for a meal. That is an incredible movie.”
Opting for something on the lighter side for his fourth pick, Sir Elton said: “Let me choose a comedy. Let me choose Blazing Saddles, because I just thought, at the time when that came out, it was just so ahead of its time.
“I mean, you couldn’t get away with that now. There’s no way you could get away with it.”
Lastly, to round up his widley eclectic top five favourite movies, the Rocket Man singer-songwriter went for Oscar-winning German feature, The Lives of Others. The psychological thriller was one of the most critically acclaimed films of the 2000s and it propelled German cinema onto John’s radar with its storyline that mingles espionage with romantic obsessions .
“The Lives of Others would go in there,” he said. “It’s just an amazing movie.”
He added: “It was just a beautiful film. So many great movies coming out of Germany, like… Well, The Reader was a Stephen Daldry film, but it was all about coming to terms with their past. And also, Downfall was as well. God, I could continue forever because I love movies.”