Best Directors
Who are the best current directors based on the following criterion:
1. Commercial Success
2. Audience Pleasing
3. Artistry
4. Cultural Relevence
5. Versatility
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Mine are:
1. Stephen Spielberg
2. Quentin Tarantino
3. Zhang Yimou
4. Tony Scott
5. Ron Howard
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And no Particle Man, I'm not going to explain why.
1. Commercial Success
2. Audience Pleasing
3. Artistry
4. Cultural Relevence
5. Versatility
------
Mine are:
1. Stephen Spielberg
2. Quentin Tarantino
3. Zhang Yimou
4. Tony Scott
5. Ron Howard
------
And no Particle Man, I'm not going to explain why.
posted by Anonymous at 1:36 PM
21 Comments:
I find it hard to narrow my preferences according to your criteria. What I can say about your choices is that although they shone here and there, I don't think too highly of Tarantino, T Scott and Howard.
What I can say about the directors I like is that they seem to be changing as I change. Back in the eighties Spielberg was my favorite; the nineties were the age of Cameron, and in this decade I have been known to say Clint Eastwood is my current favorite director.
That said, it all depends on how you look at things, because in general the films I liked the most this decade were the Lord of the Rings ones, and yet Peter Jackson is not on my list. Which is not to say he's no good, but rather that doing this type of rating list is an inherently flawed process.
You don't like Tarantino? I mean, he's not about to make the next Godfather, Night of the Hunter, or Seven Samurai, but his films are very energetic, his dialogue is great, and they're almost always a lot of fun. I do understand that you have to deal with the fact that he's not too shy about "borrowing" stuff that he thinks is cool.
well, voting based on my criteria forces one to pick people they don't like in some cases.
Someone doesn't have to like Spielberg or Lucas to deem them a commercial success. I actually am coming to dislike Spielbergs current trash very much, but he is still a commercial success.
And I detest Tarantino, but there is no doubting that he delivers the goods to his particular audience better than most directors deliver the goods to theirs.
Same idea with the rest of these directors. One can be a master of artistry, cultural relevence, or versatility yet still be an underwhelming director overall.
In fact, the only director on this list that has repeatedly wowed me is Zhang Yimou, but even still, if I had to pick a "favorite director" I'd have to pick John Sayles.
I liked Lone Star, but not that much, and I haven't heard of Sayles' other work.
Anyway, what I really wanted to say is confirm YRF's assessment of why I don't like Tarantino. It's true that he made the garbling of timelines a fad, but by Jackie Brown he even managed to bore me with that.
i think it would be better to rate directors not on a list of criteria, but rather in a subjective "my favorite" sense. for that, i would have to say Cameron Crowe is up there. the main reason is that music is such a big part of his movies. other than the iconic moment where John Cusack is holding up a boom box playing "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel, his movies have such a specific sense of what would be the perfect song for any given situation. Almost Famous is one of my top 5 movies, but even movies that have nothing to do with music get a special treatment from the music they contain, from Vanilla Sky where Tom Cruise is running down the street (R.E.M.'s "Sweetness Follows") to Claire's mix CD in Elizabethtown.
Tarantino makes very exciting films, though his obvious borrowing from anime and martial arts is lost on me. T. Scott's films are a little too "blow-stuff-up-cause-it-looks-cool" for me. and enough has been said about Spielberg, but Hession mentioned his "current trash." would you care to elaborate on that, Hession?
Uhh...Spielberg trash. Well, that's subjective, but what the heck. I've created arguments before.
1. Munich - The sex/violence parallel was a turn off and the pic ultimately said nothing memorable about the horror it showed.
2. War of the Worlds - Childish and forgettable. There was one great scene (The first machine coming out of the ground and rising up) and one great actor (Dakota Fanning). Everything else was forgettable cheese only amplified by the fact that Spielberg was actually trying to pawn this off as a possible future reality (him believing in aliens and all).
3. I'll leave the Terminal alone. It was actually pretty decent.
4. Catch Me If You Can - Hated It! The loser basically gets away with all his law-breaking and it's never called for what it is...just shown as fun, and hey...as long as we get him to use those skills for good in the end, what's the hurt?
5. Minority Report - A stupid story is mostly to blame, but he did choose to make the movie afterall. And then he has the lameness to tout the wonderful "green friendly highway system" which was powered by magnets. Uhh...Mr. Spielberg, how are they powering the highways? Why yes, dirty coal plants and big-bad oil.
6. AI - Could have been good without Spielberg's involvement. What the heck was with that last 30 minutes that just totally destroyed any intrigue that it managed to build?!?!?!
7. Saving Ryan's Privates - Great movie overall, but he still couldn't help screwing the mojo up by saying, "The person I most identify with in this movie is the guy who ran away instead of helping his friend." Yeah...at least he's honest.
8. Amistad - Absolutely gratingly fustratingly revisionist history. The Christians in the film are villified when it was they, in fact, who faught for justice regarding this incident.
9. The Lost World - Good all through
10. Schindler's List - Not terrible, but still wrought with moral obfiscation.
11. Jurassic Park - His best, most ground-breaking, and easily one of the few nearly perfect movies out there.
12. Hook - Fun.
13. Pretty much spot on from here on down...This is where he made the stuff that gave him the right to make the trash above.
I would strongly disagree that the movie had nothing to say about the violence it showed......and like all movie violence, it's incredibly fake.
Usually movies about subjects like that are strongly weighed towards one
side, but Spielberg took a more tactful approach.
And what sex/violence parallel are you talking about? The killing of whats-his-face by that woman?
don't ya just love counter-point?
1. Munich - i categorically disagree with you on this. i found the sex/violence thing to be very interesting, and the horror that it showed was memorable in and of itself. the inherent question it asked was "what was it all for?" and i liked the fact that it didn't try to answer that question for you.
2. War of the Worlds - you're mostly right. though the parallels between the movie and the war we are currently engaged in were mildly interesting, it suffered too much from the Tony Scott syndrome (blow-stuff-up-cause-it-looks-cool).
3. The Terminal - didn't see it.
4. Catch Me If You Can - loved it! the lawbreaking WAS fun! and honestly, what's the hurt anyway? other than Amy Adams, who i felt genuinely sorry for, his crimes and capers didn't do any harm. so he stole a lot of money from banks... big deal! they had it coming! my biggest problem with the movie is that it draaaaaaaagged in more than one part. more than three, actually.
5. Minority Report - didn't see all of it. curse you, Netflix!
6. A.I. - didn't see it.
7. Saving Private Ryan - don't actually remember the "guy running away" thing, but on the whole, it was a very intense experience, and a soul-enriching one, but not one i would care to repeat.
8. Amistad - didn't see it.
9. The Lost World - it didn't seem to have a point, and the ending action sequence asked me to suspend my disbelief waaaaaaaaay further than i'm willing to make it stretch. and that's saying something for me.
i won't bother to go on. anyone else care to chime in?
What's the deal, Hession? At least 2/3 of your Spielbergian complaints are morally founded. I'm not saying that morals shouldn't enter into it, but what about other things? Camera work? Cinematography? Getting the best out of actors?
Granted, morals may play more of a role in the film world than others, but when it seems to me that dismissing a director's work because you disagree with his morals is a bit like saying, "That guy is a crappy welder because he cheated on his wife."
it may be, DW, that it's more like saying "this guy's a crappy pastor because he cheated on his wife." what he preaches on may have nothing to do with infidelity, but that fact makes you look at him in a slightly different light. a filmmaker's moral standings might not have anything to do with his blowing up a building, but it may for other things.
Applying the same logic, are we now to ignore (or maybe even burn)anything that Mel Gibson ever did because of his latest adventures?
We shouldn't, but his recent misadventures have left a bad taste in my mouth. Having said that, I'll still enjoy The Road Warrior or Lethal Weapon.....but I wasn't all that crazy about Braveheart or The Passion of the Christ, so no harm, no foul.
While I generally agree with YRF's taste in Mel Gibson films, I would like to go a step back and say that sometimes the welder/pastor's wife does not mind being cheated on; sometimes it's actually a turn on [for the record, this does not apply in my case; I'm really useless at welding, for a start].
What I'm trying to say here, jokes aside, is that I don't really care about the film maker's personal life when I watch a film. Sure, it helps in figuring out the background for his/her work, but that's it.
Had Hitler been a good painter, I would have still marvelled at his paintings (while recalling the message from Clockwork Orange that high culture does not necessarily mean decency and morality).
I agree. Maybe I would have seen Mel Gibson's new movie....if I thought it was remotely interesting. But sometimes things, even things that are beyond the filmmakers control, can turn people off of a film. Requiem For A Dream is one of my favorite films ever, but it took so freaking long for Aronofsky to com out with the Fountain, and it looks so underwhelming, that I was like, ehhh, why bother?
1. Munich
YOU: "the inherent question it asked was "what was it all for?" and i liked the fact that it didn't try to answer that question for you."
ME: Well...we at least agree that the theme was there...and it's clear what we disagree on too. I was put off that Spielberg doesn't give it reason, but you like that fact. Clear enough. We can disagree.
4. Catch me if you can
YOU: "loved it! the lawbreaking WAS fun! and honestly, what's the hurt anyway? other than Amy Adams, who i felt genuinely sorry for, his crimes and capers didn't do any harm. so he stole a lot of money from banks... big deal! they had it coming!"
ME: Case in point as to why I didn't like it. By the way...the money in those banks is other people's.
YOU: "What's the deal, Hession? At least 2/3 of your Spielbergian complaints are morally founded. I'm not saying that morals shouldn't enter into it, but what about other things? Camera work? Cinematography? Getting the best out of actors? Granted, morals may play more of a role in the film world than others, but when it seems to me that dismissing a director's work because you disagree with his morals is a bit like saying, That guy is a crappy welder because he cheated on his wife."
ME: No, no, no, no. It is not like saying the welder is crappy cuz he cheated on his wife. The piece that the welder welded bears no marks of his cheating, but a movie usually bears many marks of a person's morals. And the very fact that my complaints with the movies are moral ones is a case and point that Spielberg's movies have his morals in them...morals which I don't like...and so I don't like the movies.
I liked Jurassic park because it did not have the negative morals of Catch Me if you Can.
One more comment here...I'm not measuring a movie based on someone's moral life, but rather, based on what the movie communicates. If it communicates bad morals, I tend to not like it. I am not a relativist. I can't make a movie mean anything but what the author says.
My welder comment was a stretch, obviously. No one expects someone to like a movie if they hate the presumed message of the movie. I guess I'm just saying that movies are MORE than their message, and that many times the message is debatable or unclear.
Which is why a statement like this hits me the wrong way: "I am not a relativist. I can't make a movie mean anything but what the author says." Isn't that presuming that you know what the author/director is trying to convey and that anyone who disagrees with your interpretation is wrong?
I hope I'm misreading you here, because otherwise that sounds quite presumptuous.
keep in mind, Hession, that different people have different views of the same thing. a movie could mean one thing to the director and something TOTALLY different to me, and yet a third thing to you. sometimes this does not hold true, but i would wager to say that that's the exception, not the rule. usually, with a medium as subjective as film can be, individual movies lend themselves to multiple interpretations. i could see a '57 Chevy, while you see a hunk of metal and glass, and we're both right.
What can I say...I disagree. If someone comments that their movie means thus and such, then that's what it means, and I'm not going to create another meaning. If I do create another meaning, then it is me, not the movie, that is communicating something to myself.
the problem with your statement, Hession, is in the "if someone comments" part. most filmmakers DON'T say "my movie means this and this and not such and such," because that removes personal interpretation from the equation. filmmakers LIKE interpretation. it makes a movie they make organic and dynamic, because it can't stay in the bubble of one interpretation anymore. when someone else chimes in, that makes the movie take on a whole new meaning that the filmmaker never imagined. not being a relativist says "something has one meaning and one meaning only," and that attitude is unhealthy when it comes to film. just my opinion, however.
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