Five In Focus

Cary Fukunaga

Cary Joji Fukunaga graduated from the University of California Santa Cruz. His film work as a writer, director, and cinematographer has taken him around the world, from the Arctic Circle to Haiti and West Africa. He has received several prestigious grants, including a 2008 USA Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship; the John H. Johnson Film Award; and a 2005 Princess Grace Foundation Fellowship. He also received, in 2007, a Katrin Cartlidge Foundation Bursary. Mr. Fukunaga wrote and directed the short film Victoria para Chino, which screened at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. It was honored with over two dozen international awards, including a Student Academy Award and an honorable mention from BAFTA's Los Angeles chapter. An MFA candidate from New York University's Graduate Film Program, Mr. Fukunaga marks his feature film writing and directing debut with Sin Nombre.

CARY FUKUNAGA'S FIVE FAVORITE WESTERNS

1. |

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

My dad showed me this one on Beta and we all sat around and watched it. I was singing “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on my Head” the rest of the week. This movie will never get old and the threesome dynamic is something I'm still trying to figure out how to redo with out being a blatant hack copy.

2. |

Little Big Man

My step-dad introduced me to this one and I ended up wearing out the VHS tape from watching it over and over again. The tragedies and adventures he survived made me realize growing up in the Bay Area wasn't all that exciting.

3. |

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

It's Sergio Leone, with an Ennio Morricone score, and Clint Eastwood being his best badass self. Something which (I'm guessing) every Western thereafter admittedly or secretly measured themselves against.

4. |

Tombstone

I still drop Doc Holliday lines in everyday life. And am still waiting for a chance to tell somebody "I'm your huckleberry." The shootout at the O.K. Corral is awesome in this version -- no one was hitting anyone and yet they were only 15 feet apart.

5. |

Dances With Wolves

Does this count as a Western? I'm just going to include it because I think it was an amazing film, and I think it was around this film that I realized filmmaking was what I wanted to do for a grown up job. And although it ends up being about two white people who fall in love, I think it still stands as a special and incredibly well crafted window into the beginning of how the West was lost.