Best Movie Directors and Their Movies

[evolvedForm]

List a few of your favorite directors and one movie for each that in your mind did the most to propel them to that stature. To keep it fit for the lounge, give a few reasons for each choice. Don't disappoint - my netflix queue is always hungry.


In order:

1. Werner Herzog
Aguirre, the Wrath of God is such an incredible movie that Herzog immediately became my favorite director, even though I've only seen one of his other movies (and it was Grizzly Man - interesting but no masterpiece). Stop what you are doing and put this movie in your queue RIGHT NOW. It's that [censored] good. Herzog put his own crew in danger filming this haunting epic about a madman and his doomed quest for gold and glory. Madman played by Klaus Kinski, who puts on a splendidly disturbing performance.

2. Stanley Kubrick
Though I love all of his movies I've seen (except Paths of Glory, which was aweful), Clockwork Orange is his masterpiece imo. Guess I'm developing a fetish for madness.

3. Akira Kurosawa
Ikiru is one of those movies that has stuck with me ever since I watched it. It showed me that there are wonderful classics out there capable of evincing a message as well as a great piece of literature - and most of them are older and foreign. Seven Samurai is a close second.

4. Tarkovsky
Andrei Rublev was long and slow but the photography was brilliant enough to keep interested - and not only that, but fascinated - by the world painted by Tarkovsky and revealed through the eyes of the artist Rublev.

5. Woody Allen
Crimes and Misdemeanor's is actually his best imo. I don't know how common this view is, but it impressed me as the most powerful of his works. It really gives a potent portrayal of guilt, deceit, and the eventual self-forgiveness (forgetfullness?) of an atrocious act. What I love about Woody is his ability to confuse the lines of morality and immorality and then wrench us from our 'moral' attitude, revealing the ambiguity hidden beneath us all.

[WhoIam]

Kubrick--A Clockwork Orange
Absolutely brilliant from start to finish. Upon repeating viewings it becomes apparent how much thought was put into every shot. The only film I watched again immediately after the first viewing.

Hitchcock--Torn Curtain
Not his best film, but is masterful in its unrelenting suspense.

Pudovkin--The End of St Peterburg
The best Soviet montagist (suck it Eisenstein). P. had an excellent feel for shot composition and editing and his early films remain entertaining.

Maya Deren--various short films
I took a class on experimental films and Deren's films were among the few I actually enjoyed.

Ingmar Bergman--Wild Strawberries
There are so many incredible Bergman films to choose from. Wild Strawberries sad, but not in the "I'm really not sure I can keep watching this" way of "Scenes from a Marriage" or "Cries and Whispers"

Antonioni--Red Desert
I have no idea why I like this film. There's no plot, it makes no sense, and it's absolutely brilliant. One of the few films I would consider art rather than visual literature.

Terrence Malick--The Thin Red Line
Lyrical and poetic meditation of war and peace.

Godard--Alphaville
Typical pre-ultra-pretentious Godard.

Coppola--Apocalypse Now
I shouldn't have to explain myself.

Woody Allen--Annie Hall
Another tough decision, I've seen all but a handful of his films. Genuinely funny, genuinely touching, and without the major flaws in most of his films.

Leni Riefenstahl--Triumph of the Will
Brilliant and groundbreaking, the Citizen Kane of documentary filmmaking. Oh yeah, it also glorifies the Nazis.

John Woo--A Better Tomorrow/The Killer (tie)
John Woo is certainly not on par with the directors listed above, but I love his films...er, the Hong Kong ones. Themes of brotherhood, honor, and balletic violence that predates The Matrix are hallmarks of his films.

[Dominic]

[ QUOTE ]
List a few of your favorite directors and one movie for each that in your mind did the most to propel them to that stature. To keep it fit for the lounge, give a few reasons for each choice. Don't disappoint - my netflix queue is always hungry.


In order:

1. Werner Herzog
Aguirre, the Wrath of God is such an incredible movie that Herzog immediately became my favorite director, even though I've only seen one of his other movies (and it was Grizzly Man - interesting but no masterpiece). Stop what you are doing and put this movie in your queue RIGHT NOW. It's that [censored] good. Herzog put his own crew in danger filming this haunting epic about a madman and his doomed quest for gold and glory. Madman played by Klaus Kinski, who puts on a splendidly disturbing performance.

2. Stanley Kubrick
Though I love all of his movies I've seen (except Paths of Glory, which was aweful), Clockwork Orange is his masterpiece imo. Guess I'm developing a fetish for madness.

3. Akira Kurosawa
Ikiru is one of those movies that has stuck with me ever since I watched it. It showed me that there are wonderful classics out there capable of evincing a message as well as a great piece of literature - and most of them are older and foreign. Seven Samurai is a close second.

4. Tarkovsky
Andrei Rublev was long and slow but the photography was brilliant enough to keep interested - and not only that, but fascinated - by the world painted by Tarkovsky and revealed through the eyes of the artist Rublev.

5. Woody Allen
Crimes and Misdemeanor's is actually his best imo. I don't know how common this view is, but it impressed me as the most powerful of his works. It really gives a potent portrayal of guilt, deceit, and the eventual self-forgiveness (forgetfullness?) of an atrocious act. What I love about Woody is his ability to confuse the lines of morality and immorality and then wrench us from our 'moral' attitude, revealing the ambiguity hidden beneath us all.

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great choices except for Kubrick...Paths of Glory is infinitely better than Clockwork...I actually feel Clockwork is his weakest film.

nice choice for Herzog, though.

[WhoIam]

[ QUOTE ]
1. Werner Herzog

[/ QUOTE ] Check out La Soufriere. I don't know if it's on DVD, I saw an old print of it. Here's the description from IMDB:

[/ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ]
When word that La Soufriere, a volcano, was about to explode Werner Herzog dropped everything and ran off to try and find the one inhabitant of the small island that didn't leave. Scientists were expecting an explosion of catastrophic proportions and fled themselves. When Herzog and his camera men arrived on the island they were greeted by a eerily silent landscape and a sense of impending doom. The film that resulted from Herzog's trip is strange viewing experience. As Herzog remarks its as if he were dropped into a science fiction movie where everyone in the world has disappeared but the electric, phones and TVs still worked. Its a place where thousands of snakes fled the rumbling mountain by going into the ocean while the only humans around spend time getting closer to the danger. Its an odd experience as we watch and wait for what we are told is inevitable....

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2. Stanley Kubrick

[/ QUOTE ] I think Paths of Glory is an incredible film. I would consider The Shining to be his worst-directed commonly known work.

[ QUOTE ]
4. Tarkovsky

[/ QUOTE ] Andrei Rublev is brilliant but Ivan's Childhood made me want to kill myself and Solaris is the most boring movie I've ever seen. And I'm not someone who is easily bored by films.

[rothko]

jim jarmusch



also down by law, night on earth and mystery train.

[rothko]

edit: oops, only one film per director w/comments. dead man: johnny depp, neil young and jarmusch . . . need i say more?

[rothko]

michel gondry



sorry, can't pick one. gondry takes the ethereal and makes it real; wild imaginings are but mild images of the human condition.

p.s. gondry is responsible for a bunch of the best music videos ever made.

[Potvaliant]

[ QUOTE ]
edit: oops, only one film per director w/comments. dead man: johnny depp, neil young and jarmusch . . . need i say more?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. Iggy Pop.

One of my favorite movies of all time, but I'm still not sure if this, or "Night on Earth" is his best movie ...

[evolvedForm]

Billy Bob Thornton: "I can't drink whiskey like I usedacould"

[evolvedForm]

Dom, thanks.

I was hoping somebody would dispute my comment about P of G so I could explain myself. I thought Kirk Douglas' character was far too upright and the French general far too 'evil'. That kind of absolute moral division doesn't go over well with me. I saw the piece as a battle between good and evil, and those wars are only fit to be fought in children's books if you ask me. Maybe more character development on both sides (Douglas and General) would have made the film more believable, more like Spartacus, perhaps (a great movie imo). Spartacus has similar traits, in that the protagonist is pure and upright; but the antagonist played by Olivier (Crassus) is far more complex and interesting.

Plus I could never get past the fact that an all-American like Douglas was playing a French officer, while all the others had English accents.