We’ve all had moments of extreme passion when watching movies, whether it’s collapsing into floods of tears, shrinking into your seat during a terrifying horror, or laughing hysterically at a great comedy. But seasoned actor Donald Sutherland found a fervent anger building in him after one fateful cinema trip.
Donald Sutherland has had a varied and fascinating career as one of Hollywood’s best actors, leading the best horror movies like Don’t Look Now and taking on a key villain role throughout the Hunger Games movies in order. He’s been one of the most reliable character actors in the world for the duration of his big screen career.
And it was while promoting The Hunger Games in an interview with The Guardian that Sutherland revealed how angry he became after seeing one of the best war movies, Stanley Kubrick‘s classic Paths of Glory, as a young man in the 1950s.
Sutherland saw Paths of Glory as the second part of a double bill after the significantly more poetic Fellini drama La Strada. But Paths of Glory, which follows a commanding officer in the First World War forced to defend his men when they are court-martialed for cowardice, changed Sutherland’s attitude on that day completely.
While not as well known as some of Kubrick’s other best movies, Paths of Glory has become increasingly beloved over time and now stands among the best Stanley Kubrick movies. It certainly had an enormous impact on Sutherland, who found himself experiencing a very physical response.
He said: “When I came out of that movie I was grabbing stones, pieces of gravel, anything, and throwing them at the street, so much was the rage at the injustice that I felt.”
Sutherland hoped that The Hunger Games might arouse such potent emotions in its own viewers, saying: “It just puts things out in the light and lets you have a look at it. And if you take from it what I hope you will take from it, it will make you think a little more pungently about the political environment you live in and not be complacent.”
While The Hunger Games didn’t bring about the revolution that Sutherland had discussed, it’s certainly true that the satirical edge of the franchise gave viewers something worth thinking about.
For more from this Hollywood legend, find out why Donald Sutherland turned down millions to make Animal House and learn about Donald Sutherland’s bizarre demand to make a movie.