Ahead of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’s Venice premiere, Winona Ryder made a brief detour to the Criterion Closet. Among her picks were 2 by Jim Jarmusch, 5 by John Cassavetes, and one by Gordon Parks. Obviously, she spent some time waxing poetic about Gena Rowlands and the impact she had on Ryder’s own career. Ryder’s mother was a projectionist, and she snuck her daughter in to see some Cassavetes flicks as a little kid. “I didn’t really understand what was going on, because I was too young,” she said, “but I remember watching Gena and I just wanted to do what she was doing.”
Her final pick was After Life by Hirokazu Kore-eda. In the film, people who have just died decide what memory from their life they want to dwell in for the rest of eternity. “I never told anyone this, but the two most comforting sounds growing up for me was my dad’s typewriter and my mom’s footsteps,” she said. “That would be what I would pick to live forever, because that’s when I felt their presence. They’re sort of my favorite people in the world.”
