Can it be coincidental that the Brescia, Italy public film library had all these Tim Roth movies?

Eleven years ago now, I was living in Brescia, Italy.  Brescia is not a tourist destination; I was living there and sort of working, sort of studying, finding myself, the shit white people do before they decide to run a bank.  

Brescia’s main library branch was in a 16th century palazzo in the historic city center.  (A palazzo - big square building with a column-lined courtyard inside, like a small city block with a hole in the middle.)  The main stacks took a good part of the palazzo, and then there were some city offices, a ground floor reading room, and one corner of it, the corner that faced the main crossroad at the corner of the historic center, was a one-room DVD library.

There were maybe 500 DVDs in the library.  Probably 400 of them English-language.  Those 400 films can be broken down as follows:

Star Wars: 0

Jim Carrey: 0

Disney: 0

Directed by Woody Allen: 25

Starring Tim Roth: 148

Honeymoon in Vegas (starring Nicholas Cage): 0

Leaving Las Vegas (starring Nicholas Cage): 1

Aside from a few mentioned below, I don’t remember the rest. I do remember borrowing Leaving Las Vegas, thinking it was Honeymoon in Vegas, which seemed like the kind of fun and fluffy movie my wife and I needed at the time, being broke and lonely and existentially humiliated. And then I spent the first hour of the movie going “no, he’s not really going to drink himself to death, he’s going to learn to skydive and parachute down to the roof of a building and propose to her.” Then he drank himself to death and literally nothing fun happened in the entire movie.

So, because I had no money and minimal ability to communicate with the natives, watching Tim Roth movies became my primary recreational pastime for much of 2008 and 2009.  

I have CONSTANTLY wondered, since then, whether (a) Tim Roth just acted in a lot of great movies between 1989 and 2008, or (b) the one dude who ran the Brescia film library had a hard-on for Tim Roth.  And so, now, I’m going to vomit all my thoughts on this subject and come to the most well-reasoned and definitive conclusion possible without asking that guy.

In chronological order, here are a few of the Tim Roth movies owned by the Brescia library in 2009, with a brief discussion of how coincidental might be the library’s ownership of such films at that time.

1. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (1989)

The film: Usually it’s described as a crime drama. But the main fact to know is it was directed by Peter Greenaway. Peter Greenaway doesn’t direct films that tell stories so much as he makes baroque paintings about actors in crime dramas set in modern times. Like, Barry Lyndon with a tenth the budget and 400% more sex and violence. Peter Greenaway’s movies are about as weird and stylistic as you can get and still be reviewed in the New York Times.

Is it any good: Generally considered one of the two best Peter Greenaway movies, the other being The Draughtsman’s Contract. Which Brescia’s library also owned. If you haven’t been to film school, it will open your mind to the possibilities of the medium. So yeah, sure.

Tim Roth role: “Mitchel, a dim-witted goon in Spica's gang.” That’s pretty accurate. See video starting at 1:39.

Probability of Coincidental Purchase: High. Roth has a minor role, and the library had at least one other Greenaway film that doesn’t feature Tim Roth. This was a film buff acquisition.

2. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990)

The film: The film version of a Tom Stoppard play that is sort of like Shakespeare fan fiction. Like, you know how like eight thousand people have written short stories that are like “what did Draco really think of this whole Harry Potter situation? Like, he was caught between good and evil and family, that’s the real story!” (And then most of them end with Draco and Harry having sex)? I guarantee you I have read none of these stories. Just, being a human in the 21st century, I know they exist.

Anyway—in Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are minor characters caught in a scheming-nobility plot, they’re really just messengers. And to save himself and maybe take down his uncle, Prince Hamlet sends them to their deaths, without their knowledge. That’s it, we don’t know anything else about them. Tom Stoppard wrote a play about these guys kind of hanging out, wondering what the hell is going on with their royal bosses, meditating on the nature of reality and theatricality and whether any of us have free will.

Is it any good: It’s one of those plays that you learn about in like sixth grade, because your teacher assigns you to read Hamlet and then she needs to lead a discussion about it, so she’s like “you think Hamlet’s the good guy, huh? Would a good guy send those two innocent messengers to their deaths? What does being good really mean, bro? You know, there’s a whole other play about that.” And then fifteen years later you see the film version of the play (because what, are you going to pay rent money for theater tickets?) and you’re like “so that’s how people played tennis in the olden days.”

Tim Roth role: He’s Guildenstern, baby. A plum role. This is when his career hit its stride. He’s basically been in this place ever since—the odd leading man in a weird, artsy film, and the odd memorably neurotic villain in a mainstream role. Honestly the movie is mildly compelling, which is an accomplishment considering it’s a what-is-reality/fatal-struggle-against-destiny meditation kind of thing, so let’s hand it to Tim Roth for that.

Probability of Coincidental Purchase: Medium. On the one hand, it’s a famous play and academically high-profile. On the other, you’d be way more into it if you were a big Tim Roth fan than if you were a big Shakespeare fan, or even a big fan of experimental film and theater (see above). I’d give the edge against coincidence because this is so English languagey that I would hate to watch it in translation, or with subtitles. You’d really need to be both a theater/film nerd and a Tim Roth fan to enjoy this in your second tongue.

3. Reservoir Dogs (1992)

The film: Quentin Tarantino’s breakout, iconic take on the heist movie. Super violent, saturated with pop-culture references and cool music cues and white dudes. Lot of white dudes. Very Quentin Tarantino.

Is it any good: Yes. A better question might be how well does it hold up. And for me, that’s changed in recent years. I think I was always pretty forward-thinking about wanting to see women and non-white people on screen, but there were always a few directors - Tarantino, the Coen Brothers - for whom I was willing to say ok, this is the story you want to tell and it’s a story about white guys, so you can be the one who gets to make stories about white guys. But then I learned about how Tarantino nearly killed Uma Thurman forcing her to do her own stunt driving for some shot that really only exists to show her hair whipping around, and then I learned that he knew about Harvey Weinstein for years.

I’ll give it to Tarantino, he has a capacity for self-reflection and it’s not like he doesn’t see how he profited from and perpetuated the white male hegemony. I just don’t think anyone gets a pass anymore, for just making the really good films that are only about white people (and Samuel L. Jackson). So it’s just hard to feel so gung-ho about his whole shtick now.

Tim Roth role: Mr. Orange, around whom the entire movie revolves. It’s a pretty damn big role. Characteristically, it’s also very much a role that is about acting and storytelling, super meta. I think we’re seeing a through-line here…

Probability of Coincidental Purchase: High. Reservoir Dogs is a stone-cold classic and the Brescia library had a lot of crime dramas. Regardless, if ever there was a movie to validate one’s Tim Roth fandom…

4. Little Odessa (1994)

The film: To be honest I don’t remember it that well, I remember it as a fairly straightforward crime drama film and, unlike most of the others on this list, not terribly up its own ass about the nature of storytelling. It was the breakout hit from James Grey, who has made a number of good-but-not-great movies like The Immigrant and The Lost City of Z. The Brescia library was so heavy on crime films (all of the Italian language DVDs were crime dramas or Fellini), they run together. I’m not 100% sure I even saw this one, I might have just read the back of the DVD case.

Is it any good: I remember it being pretty compelling, although now I’m loathe to watch any movie where dead women are currency, and this is one of those.

Tim Roth role: He’s the main guy.

Probability of Coincidental Purchase: Low to medium. This movie won some awards, but it’s not The Godfather. If you have 500 films to watch on a desert island (and that’s the Brescia public library film division circa 2008), you’re not bringing Little Odessa unless you spank it to Tim Roth nightly.

5. Pulp Fiction (1994)

The film: I’m not going to explain Pulp Fiction; there just cannot be anyone who reads this who would need to be told.

Is it any good: Yes, subject to above comments re Tarantino.

Tim Roth role: He’s the punk asshole who accidentally prompts Samuel L. Jackson to quote the bible and reconsider his life choices, which has repercussions later in the film’s chronology. But that’s just the plot mechanics; we spend multiple minutes with this guy talking about his life choices, which lends some weight to what eventually happens and its impact in the movie’s multiple storylines. This is another one that’s very much about the nature of storytelling and theater.

Probability of Coincidental Purchase: Extremely. If you have 500 films to watch on a desert island and you don’t include Pulp Fiction, you’re a goddamn lunatic.

6. Rob Roy (1995)

The film: It’s a historical drama about a Scottish folk hero. Sort of like Scottish Robin Hood. Fun fact: there is a novel by Sir Walter Scott called Rob Roy, about the same character.

And I was fairly certain I had listened to an audio book of that book, read by Liam Neeson and that this movie was based on the book. But in five minutes of research for this blog post, I learned that the movie is not based on the Walter Scott novel, just both based on the same real historical person. And I can’t find anything about a novelization of the 1995 movie. But I swear my mom had an audio cassette of Rob Roy, the story told in the 1995 film, and I listened to the whole thing in a tent in the late 1990s while on a family road/camping trip, and I am not making this up because I absolutely masturbated in a tent to that story and one does not invent such memories. There was a scene where he has sex with his wife while they’re having a family picnic and I was like “OMG I am twelve years old and this is unparalleled in its eroticism.” And that scene is definitely in the movie, also. But I am freaked out because the internet is not validating my memory. Somebody please find an audiobook cassette of the novelization of Rob Roy the 1995 film, as read by Liam Neeson, so I can stop freaking out.

Is it any good: Yeah! It’s a solid historical epic, great heroes and villains, a bit of sex, some of it consensual, appropriately condemning of the non-consensual.

Tim Roth role: Maybe his best. Tim Roth got a BAFTA and an Oscar nomination for this one, well deserved. He is a truly dastardly villain in this one, and very fun to watch. I particularly remember (from both the audiobook and the film!) a scene where he describes how he was conceived when his mother was taken from behind by a stranger wearing a mask at a party, and his lover is horrified and asks if she was raped, and he’s like “…we could charitably say she was surprised.” Damn, sick burn. Couldn’t find it on youtube.

Probability of Coincidental Purchase: Medium. It’s definitely a good movie, but again, desert island? If you’re Scottish, yes. Otherwise, I doubt it. You can’t be a Tim Roth fan and not own this movie though.

7. Four Rooms (1995)

The film: An anthology of short films about weird goings on at a hotel. Tim Roth ties it all together in the role of Ted, the bellhop, who gets involved in each of the four stories. Tarantino directs one of the short films and I think he had a big role in bringing the project together.

Is it any good: So, when this came out, the entire world was like “Quentin Tarantino followed up Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction with this garbage?” And that’s kind of an appropriate response. But I am kind of fond of it—it’s clearly Tarantino doing a couple things: (1) inviting guest directors he admires and wants to boost with his new starpower to come in and do a random short project, and (2) exercising his creative juices to do a fun little project that isn’t a non-linear crime/revenge caper soaked in pop culture references.

It should be noted, the four component shorts are all pretty different in tone. The first short story is about a coven of witches, led by Madonna, who need to procure some semen to finish a magic ritual. It is really poorly acted and the story is just dumb and pointless. I don’t want to dislike it so much, because that segment is the only one directed by a woman and starring primarily women, but there’s no way around it.

Anyway, the other stories are fine. Tarantino’s is the unarguable highlight—particularly if you have already read the Roald Dahl story it’s based on, because it diverts from that story’s plot in a way that is executed with incredible confidence and joy. And I’ve never enjoyed Tarantino as an actor other than in this film.

Tim Roth role: We actually borrowed this from the library multiple times, just to watch Tim Roth. Another throughline in his career is he frequently plays characters with nervous tics who move around and squirm a lot and swerve flamboyantly in and out of self-assurance. Not every role, but plenty of them. This film is the apotheosis of the Tim Roth Character.

Probability of Coincidental Purchase: Medium, if only because you’d buy this if you were a Tarantino buff and the Brescia library provides sufficient evidence of that also. I think they had Jackie Brown and Kill Bill Vol. 1, but not every Tarantino film, so it’s a wash.

8. Everyone Says I Love You (1996)

What is this: One of Woody Allen’s worst films, which is saying a lot.

Is it any good: I specifically remember my dad giving his opinion on this movie, and it’s the only thing I can remember him ever saying that you could call art criticism. My mom asked him how he liked it, and he said “they’re not singing actors, they’re actors singing.” End of conversation. He’s not wrong. But there are worse things to say about the movie, starting with I found it very boring.

Tim Roth role: I don’t know. We didn’t watch it in Brescia. I watched it with my dad in 1997. I just remember it was a Saturday night and I was thinking about how there were such better movies we could watch. I also remember Drew Barrymore is in it and I had kind of a crush on her at the time and thought she was the best singer in the movie. I looked it up just now and it turns out she’s the only one of the famous actors in the film who had their voice dubbed. Which just goes to show, she’s smarter than the rest.

Probability of Coincidental Purchase: Actually pretty high. Italians are very into Woody Allen, generally speaking, and at that time he wasn’t all that controversial even in America (not at all in Italy as far as I could tell). We actually did watch some of the slightly more defensible Woody Allen films out of the Brescia library - Crimes and Misdemeanors, Broadway Danny Rose, A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy. And Sweet and Lowdown, which I think was actually pretty good.

9. Vatel (2000)

The film: A historical drama about the greatest chef in France, who strives for excellence and struggles against the fact that he’s a pawn in a power struggle among the nobility. The equivalent would be, like, a movie about Michael Jordan just trying to be a great basketball player and struggling against corrupt Bulls ownership. So, like, that 10-hour documentary that is airing on ESPN right now. The French version of that. But written by Tom Stoppard and in the English language, but with Gérard Depardieu (France’s answer to Brian Cox (Britain’s answer to Gene Hackman)) as the super chef guy.

Is it any good: Not really. Great costumes and the cinematography of the food is pretty impressive, but it’s a Gérard Depardieu vehicle. It’s really, really French. It just has Tim Roth and Uma Thurman in it.

Tim Roth role: He plays the Marquis de Lauzun. His face is on the DVD cover. I have no recollection of his role.

Probability of Coincidental Purchase: Medium. This film checks a bunch of boxes we’ve seen before - Tom Stoppard, highbrow continental costumery, Uma Thurman. I think we’re just getting a sense of the Brescia library’s general taste.

10. Lucky Numbers (2000)

What is this: A dark comedy starring John Travolta as a local news broadcaster who tries to rig a lottery. Lisa Kudrow plays his girlfriend, and I remember her being funny in a dumb-blonde-based-on-Phoebe-from-Friends kind of way that in retrospect probably underdeployed her skills. But I don’t know. It’s not like I re-watch this shit just to write a blog post!

Is it any good: I remember thinking it was pretty funny. I had seen it in college and chose to rewatch it in Brescia, so it can’t have been bad.

Tim Roth role: I had to look this up online because I didn’t remember he was in this movie, I only remembered that the Brescia library had it, and then I saw it when I looked up his filmography to write this.

Probability of Coincidental Purchase: Low. I don’t know why the Brescia library would have this film if not for Tim Roth. It was directed by Nora Ephron?

11. Invincible (2001)

The film: A Werner Herzog movie about a Jewish strongman in 1930s Germany. The strongman is played by Jouko Ahola, a 2-time world’s strongest man who I was weirdly a big fan of from watching world’s strongest man competitions on broadcast tv long before I knew this movie existed. Of the indistinguishable meatballs that populate such things, he had the coolest name.

Is it any good: I can’t say. I specifically did not watch this one. At the time, the only Werner Herzog movie I’d ever seen was Aguirre, the Wrath of God, which I watched in a philosophy class in 9th grade, taught by the absolute laziest philosophy teacher in the world, which is saying a lot. Anyway, my reaction to Aguirre was on the lines of “that’s cool. I wish I were a person who would enjoy that movie. I’m going to pretend I enjoyed it.” But I was honest enough with myself that I didn’t seek out and watch any more Herzog films once I had access to them.

Now, I love Werner Herzog films. Honestly. No, I’m lying. I’ve seen a few and they’re fine; one a year is my limit. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans ranks highest in all film history by ratio of substantive greatness to quality of title. Also, I loved (1) Werner Herzog’s cameo on Parks and Recreation and (2) Paul F. Tompkins’ impression of him on Andy Daly’s podcast.

Tim Roth role: The impresario of a cabaret that employs the strongman and caters to a mostly Nazi clientele. Seems like a good match for him, he’s probably great in it.

Probability of Coincidental Purchase: Hard to say, because I think they had a few other Werner Herzog films but they didn’t have Aguirre or Grizzly Man. I think we’re observing with this list that it’s really tough to attribute a purchase to Tim Roth when it’s a solid outing by a famous director.

12. Youth Without Youth (2007)

The film: So, in the 1970s, Francis Ford Coppola wrote and directed the first two Godfathers, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now, producing all but the first Godfather. He wrote Patton and The Great Gatsby. What a fucking run of films. If you’re talking greatest director decade of all time, you’ve got Coppola in the 70s, Spielberg in 2nd and 3rd with the 80s and 90s, then maybe Paul Thomas Anderson in a distant fourth with 2007 to 2017 but that’s a stretch because it’s not a true decade and Inherent Vice isn’t that great. And Spielberg isn’t that close either - you have to account for 1941, Empire of the Sun, Always, Hook, and all of his “serious” race-oriented films which are hard to judge on artistic merit and I’m not going to talk about the holocaust again here.

In the 1980s, Francis Ford Coppola made a bunch of movies I mostly haven’t seen and none are terribly well remembered. The Cotton Club took him half the decade to make, and it’s pretty good. Captain EO is that weird piece of shit with Michael Jackson in it that played at Disney World for a long time.

In the 1990s, Francis Ford Coppola made Godfather III, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Jack, and The Rainmaker. Let’s break that down:

Godfather III: joyless caper about a Vatican banking scandal, famously terrible, somehow soiled the reputation of The Godfather parts I and II, a feat only Coppola himself could ever have accomplished.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula: a slow-moving and very director-y version of the Dracula tale starring Gary Oldman, Winona Rider, and Keanu Reeves with a British accent (1992!); honestly it’s an underrated classic.

Jack: the Robin Williams version of Big, which is as offputting as it sounds.

The Rainmaker: in which Francis Ford Coppola really needs to make some money, so he adapts John Grisham. No shade on John Grisham, but there’s highbrow and there’s lowbrow, and there’s lowbrow that pretends to be middlebrow, and that last one is John Grisham and it’s not Francis Ford Coppola.

So then ten years after The Rainmaker, Francis Ford Coppola makes Youth Without Youth. How to describe? It’s like if you took the Coppola who made The Conversation, and made him spend thirty years studying with Noam Chomsky. It’s a film about an old man who is struck by lightning and given the choice to become a god who possesses ultimate knowledge of linguistics, at the expense of his humanity. It’s fucking fascinating. Also, very slow. Maybe a bit sloppy with its metaphysics. But as Tim Roth explains in this interview, it’s kind of a movie about all of consciousness and the meaning of life. The closest analogs might be Terence Malick’s Tree of Life or Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!.

Is it any good: Yeah! The critics didn’t love it, but you know what? Check this one out.

Tim Roth role: He’s the linguistics professor/possible god character. It’s a lot of movie for one man to carry, and if the movie has failings I don’t know if I blame Tim Roth for them, it’s just a very cumbersome concept for a movie. It’s interesting to ponder whether any actor could have done it better. Maybe Gary Oldman? Now there’s another guy whose name keeps coming up (he was Rosencrantz, Dracula, a few others on this list).

Probability of Coincidental Purchase: Medium. It’s Coppola, but it’s not like the Brescia library had Jack or The Rainmaker. But it did have The Cotton Club, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and all the 70s Coppola films. So maybe somebody just had great taste in Coppola.

13. The Incredible Hulk (2008)

What is this: The second film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, after Iron Man. Starring Edward Norton as the Hulk.

Is it any good: I think most people who like the Marvel films are happy enough with this one. I’m not a big fan. I think Edward Norton is a more compelling Bruce Banner than Mark “Am I Still In This Coma” Ruffalo.

Tim Roth role: The obligatory guy-with-powers-identical-to-the-hero who loses so you know the hero has heart. He does it well.

Probability of Coincidental Purchase: Very low. I don’t recall any other superhero films in the entire library. I mean, it was 2008, but you’d think if someone was a superhero fan there would be the 2003 Hulk, any of the Keaton, Clooney, Kilmer, or Bale Batman films, any of the Superman or Spiderman or X-Men films…I mean, there were plenty to be had by 2008. So I don’t see another reason Brescia would’ve purchased this one.

FINAL ANALYSIS:

Looking at this list and writing out my thoughts, I think there’s a few trends we can observe:

• Tim Roth gravitates toward films about films, films that meditate on what stories are and why we tell them and what that says about us as people.

• Tim Roth also gravitates toward films by extremely high-quality and/or high-profile directors and writers.

So of these 13 films, there’s really only two that don’t fall into both categories - Lucky Numbers and Incredible Hulk. That’s really not a lot! And given the quality of the others on the list, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to think “You know what? Dude has a good track record, I’ll give this a shot.” That’s not Tim Roth boner fandom so much as understanding when someone has good taste and trusting in their artistry. Like, I don’t walk around saying I’m a huge Steven Soderbergh fan, but am I gonna watch High Flying Bird if it pops up on Netflix, knowing nothing about it other than he directed it? You’re goddamn right I am, and then I’m gonna be sad for a few hours, thinking about racism and capitalism.

Also: Tim Roth directed a movie, called The War Zone. I don’t remember whether the Brescia library had that movie, but my guess is if it did, I would’ve seen it.

Frankly, the question posed in this post, which I’ve been obsessing over for 12 years, presupposes an affirmative answer to the question. And so I’m shocked to say that maybe Tim Roth, who is not a person I ever thought hard about as an artist before finding all his films in the Brescia library, is just a guy who chooses movies well, and is a good actor who is sought after by other talented people. And I mean, maybe there’s an element of my surprise here, that’s like “this guy isn’t talented enough to justify his presence in all these movies.” That could be. He’s not Brad Pitt, or even John Travolta, in terms of on-screen charisma. But Youth Without Youth starring John Travolta would be pretty awful.

CONCLUSION: PROBABLY A COINCIDENCE. HE’S JUST A GOOD ACTOR WHO WAS IN A LOT OF GOOD FILMS FOR 20 YEARS.

THE END.