Colman Domingo

“I just saw... I don’t know how I just saw this. I think it was on a flight, and I think they had this, and I was like, “Oh, this is interesting.” It’s an interesting short film, called Black Girl, and it’s just really interesting, intriguing to me. I thought it was shot beautifully. Of course, it’s about racial politics of this young woman coming from... I think she came from Africa, then to keep House in... France? Yeah. But I just wanted to study this. This is one of those films you want to...”

“Check this out: Ermanno Olmi’s Il Posto. I’ve heard a lot about this film. “When young Domenico ventures from the small village of Meda to Milan in search of employment, he finds himself on the bottom rung of the bureaucratic ladder in a huge, faceless company. The prospects are daunting, but Domenico finds reason for hope in the fetching Antonietta.” I heard it was a great film. I’m inspired to see what I get out of it.”

“I saw this, Claudine. James Earl Jones, Diahann Carroll. One of my favorite films that I’ve watched over and over again, just about Black life, 1974. Woman really trying to find her way through, and James Earl Jones is a garbage man. James Earl Jones is like... This character is like my pop. I think maybe that’s why I relate to this character so much. I’m like, I see that dude, that dude who was, like, too cool, blue-collar dude, but who became a man and laid down some rules for the new family.”

“Mean Streets. Come on now. 1973. I feel like I’m leaning more towards early ’70s movies. Scorsese at his best. Rough, raw. Another movie you want to study. Study frames, look at the way the storytelling is rolled out. I’m into it.”

“Purple Noon. Another film I saw on a flight. This is a theme that’s happening. I see a lot of films on a flight. Alain Delon, one of The Most Beautiful men that has ever graced a screen. And it’s all complicated, and it’s all about being someone else and aspiring with the wealth, wealthy, and doing dastardly things, and looking like this.”

“I have to take this with me: Moonstruck. One of my favorite films. It’s great. 1987. I think everybody won an Academy Award for this: Cher, Olympia Dukakis. A fantastic film. I think I’ve seen this maybe fifty times. Now it’s going to be another fifty times, now that I have this.”

“Coup de Grâce. “Latvia, 1919: the end of the Russian Civil War. An aristocratic young woman, brilliantly played by Margarethe von Trotta, becomes involved with a sexually repressed Prussian soldier.” All right. “When she is rejected by her would-be lover, the young woman is sent into a downward spiral of psychosexual depression, promiscuity, and revolutionary collaboration.” This is dope. A startling tale of heartbreak and violence, a powerful film that explores private passion and political ...”

“I am going to take this with me: Wong Kar Wai, someone who really has inspired so many people. I know that Barry Jenkins was very inspired by this man, and he’s really someone for filmmakers to take a look at and see how he composes frames and tells a story, sometimes with just... Very minimal. How to make really smart decisions and storytelling decisions with lighting, with framing. I want to watch everything.”