As we finish up 2009, how about something a little (or a lot) less theological this week?
Many great directors have put forth efforts this year (Tarantino’s Basterds, Anderson‘s Mr. Fox, Lee‘s Passing Strange, von Trier‘s Antichrist, Soderbergh‘s Informant!, the Coens’ Serious Man, and Jonze‘s Wild Things, to name just a few), and it got me thinking about directors. As you’ll no doubt already have noted, I love movies. In my perfect world, every day would end with a movie after dinner. One of the things that has always fascinated me is the stamp (or lack thereof) a director puts on a movie. Sometimes, you can just tell. For instance, I bet you could pick out a Darren Aronofsky movie if I showed you one. When I’m thinking about this “directorial stamp,” I always think of the Alien Quadrilogy. In no other case that I can think of have four different directors taken on the task of bringing a very similar story to the screen. Sure, there are many Robin Hood movies, but rarely are they made very close to one another, leading to generational differences in filmmaking. The Alien movies, on the other hand, star many of the same actors!
Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Black Hawk Down) directed the first, while James Cameron (Titanic, Terminator 2) took on the second. David Fincher (Fight Club, Seven) took the reigns for the third, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie, The City of Lost Children) helmed the final installment. Crazy, right? What disparate visions! What could the directors of Terminator 2 and Amelie possibly have in common? What shared vision might they bring to the story of a woman standing between a race of ravenous poison-blooded aliens and the extinction of the human race?
But this post isn’t going to deconstruct the “directorial stamp” as it’s seen in the Alien films…as interesting an undertaking as that would be. Rather, I bring it up to ask a question: Who’s your desert-island director? In other words, if you could only watch the movies of one filmmaker for the rest of your life, who would it be?
Some folks in the running for me:
Scott (The Duelists, Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Matchstick Men, American Gangster, Body of Lies)
Steven Spielberg (Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ET, the Indiana Jones movies, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, Munich)
Tony Scott, yes, Ridley’s popcorn brother, and my guiltiest pleasure (Top Gun, Days of Thunder, The Last Boy Scout, True Romance, Crimson Tide, Enemy of the State, Spy Game, Man on Fire, Domino, Deja Vu)
Paul Thomas Anderson (Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood)
The Coen Brothers (Joel and Ethan) (Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou, Intolerable Cruelty, The Ladykillers, No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading)
Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill vols. 1&2, Death Proof, Inglorious Basterds)
Of course, all of these directors have made more films (except for Anderson), but I’ve listed the one’s I’ve seen and liked. I’m leaning toward either Spielberg for sheer volume (with the exception of A.I. he’s basically never made a bad movie…) and toward the Coens and Tarantino for consistency (I like everything they’ve ever done). Anderson’s movies are brilliant and moving, but he hasn’t done enough yet to tide me over for the rest of my life.
What do you think?
Great Movie No One Has Ever Seen: Drop Dead Gorgeous, 1999 (Michael Patrick Jann)
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COMMENTS
8 responses to “Mockingbird at the Movies: Desert Island Directors”
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Film historians will note my modern bias here…No Hitchcock, no Kubrick…sigh. What am I to say? I just prefer modern filmmaking. I guess, really, I prefer modern acting. With the exception of Spencer Tracy, all actors of his generation were really ACTING. You could tell.
Wow, Nick. Great post. And I LOVE the Aliens Quadrilogy. (James Cameron's best work imo).
I'd have to say desert island directors for me are probably Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, Whit Stillman, and maybe Terry Gilliam. At least, those guys have made the movies that I enjoy watching over and over most. Possibly add Peter Jackson to that list, just so I could bring the LOTR series along. Oh and Christopher Nolan too. And Nick Park. And maybe George Miller.
This is fun. Thanks Nick.
Are you excited for Sir Ridley's Alien prequel?!
Jeez, DZ…you can pick ONE. that's the whole point. Who you got? My Alien fav is Fincher's 3. Nice and dark.
Hey Nick. You mention the acting style of Spencer Tracy's generation. That was basically the 30s and 40s, and did indeed precede the shift in Hollywood towards deeply naturalistic acting (the generation of method actors).
But Kubrick's greatest movies were all made in the 1960s or later.
Kubrick would certainly be the director I'd pick. Lolita and 2001 and The Shining and Full Metal Jacket and so on… he really did amazing things with film and with storytelling.
I share DZ's fondness for Woody Allen too, though he's more uneven. I especially love his middle period (1976-87) which included Interiors and September and Purple Rose and loads of other wonderful stuff.
Francis Ford Coppola is worth mentioning for the achievement of producing three masterpieces in a tiny time frame (the two Godfathers and The Conversation) — nobody else has done that.
Coppola, Woody Allen, and Kubrick movies certainly all have a definite unique feel. Very much a personal stamp on the movies they make.
If you're a fan of animated films and have to live with one director's films for the rest of your life Hayao Miyazaki is your best choice until Brad Bird makes more movies. 🙂
I have to go with PTA or the Coens…
Totally agree re:Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Blade Runner) and James Cameron (Terminator, The Abyss), but I agree with DZ that Christopher Nolan should be close to the top for his amazing work in the Batman movies. I also thought that Robert Zemeckis did a brilliant job with Contact, Peter Hyams with 2010, and for sheer fun, Speilberg and De Bont's 'Twister' is first class.
It been an amazing couple of decades for cinema – hopefully, there's more to come.
Kubrick has to be in there.
I'd also add John Ford and Billy Wilder.