Showing posts with label directors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label directors. Show all posts

First Views, 2013; or, It Took You This Long To See That?

I really should have been doing this before now. Over the course of 2013 I saw these older films for the first time and loved them to pieces. 

Major director discoveries/explorations: André De Toth, Joseph Losey, Michael Cimino, Robert Aldrich, Curtis Harrington, Jean Negulesco, Vincente Minelli, Fritz Lang, Lionel Rogosin, Sidney Lumet, Frank Borzage, Richard C. Sarafian, Souleymane Cissé, Arthur Penn, Budd Boetticher, Elaine May, & Robert Greene.


Performers that made the biggest impression/made me see them in a new light: Maria Callas, Gretchen Moll, Randolph Scott, Cyd Charisse, Regina Baff, Burt Lancaster, Elaine May, Annie McGreevey, Taylor Mead, Joe Don Baker, Lynn Redgrave, Sean Connery & Fred Astaire.

Unforgettable rep screenings: Sorcerer & The New World on 35mm at BAMCinematek. L'Avventura on 35mm at Film Forum. 
Maria Callas on the set of Pasolini's Medea
Medea
Kam čert nemůže
Two Weeks In Another Town
The Haunting of Julia
The Eyes of Laura Mars
Before Sunrise
Before Sunset
The Missouri Breaks
Murphy's War
Emperor of the North Pole
Cut-Throats Nine
The Terminal Man
The Sugarland Express
Letter Never Sent
The Three Musketeers (1973)
Colossus: The Forbin Project
Man in the Wilderness
Night Tide
Autumn Leaves
The Cars That Ate Paris
The Gypsy Moths
The Sorcerers
The Spirit
The Loveless
All That Jazz
Manhattan Murder Mystery
Outland
All The President's Men
Park Row
Next of Kin (Australian)
The Notorious Bettie Page
Gloria
Three Comrades
Inside Daisy Clover
Comanche Station
Letter From An Unknown Woman
Day for Night
The Desperate Hours (1990)
Chronicles of the Years of Fire
The Woman In White
Sacred Ground
The King of Marvin Gardens
Yeelen
Badou Boy
The Story of Vernon & Irene Castle
Fake It So Real
The Gay Divorcee
History Is Made At Night
Tilaï
Pitfall (1948)
Din of Celestial Birds
The Rise & Fall of Legs Diamond
Dark Water
My Name is Julia Ross
The Gauntlet
Close-Up
Thomasine & Bushrod
...All The Marbles
Hard Times
In Vanda's Room
Hellraiser 2
Flesh + Blood
Vera Cruz
Ulzana's Raid
A New Leaf
Mystery of Picasso
The Outfit
Mickey One
Lolly-Madonna XXX
Medium Cool
The Mortal Storm
Babo 73
Below The Belt
Stage Door
Purple Noon
The Great Moment
Odd Obsession
The Enchanting Shadow
The Delinquents
The Man In The White Suit
The Ninth Circle
The Lady With The Little Dog
The Chasers
Home From The Hill
Diggstown
Cruising
You Only Live Once
Most Dangerous Man Alive
Anatomy of a Murder
The Color of Money
L'Amérique Insolite
The Ladykillers
Stormy Monday
He Who Gets Slapped
The Outrage
Manhattan Melodrama
Carson City
The Lavender Hill Mob
Stranger on the Third Floor
Last of the Mobile Hot Shots
The Offence
The Hill
Go West
Come Back, Africa
Das Schloß (1968)
Day of the Outlaw
Equus
Daddy Long Legs 
To Die For
Portrait of Jennie
Flight of the Phoenix
The Reckless Moment
Thunderbolt & Lightfoot
Die Nibelungen
The Upthrown Stone
The World of Henry Orient
Hangmen Also Die!
Ministry of Fear
Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round
Daguerréotypes
The Prowler
Drive, He Said
The Hired Hand
Man in the Wilderness

The Rosenbaum Test: The Greatest Living Narrative Filmmakers

A little while ago Jonathan Rosenbaum, in whose direction myself and most other critics genuflect, reposted an article of his on the master director Michelangelo Antonioni he wrote in the early 90s. The interesting thing is that he starts his article with a quick list of who he thinks might be the 12 greatest living narrative filmmakers, and of course the director of Red Desert and The Passenger made the cut. He'd have made mine too at the time. This got me and many others thinking about how to answer that question today. Kevin B. Lee got a discussion going and Richard Brody posted his own list with a complete set of guidelines. I cribbed a bit from those guidelines and tried to make my own list, which proved sensationally difficult. I love a lot of directors, but are they "the greatest"? Can their work never be equaled? Could anyone else even pretend to their style? It took some incredible concentration to get it down just to 16. Never one to suffer alone, I asked everyone else to throw their two cents in and here's what we came up with.


Scout Tafoya

1. Marco Bellocchio
2. Terence Davies
3. Claire Denis
4. Philippe Grandrieux
5. Terrence Malick
6. Chantal Akerman
7. Tsai Ming-Liang
8. Agnès Varda
9. Wes Anderson
10. Alain Resnais
11. Francis Ford Coppola
12. PT Anderson

Honorable Mentions: Manoel De Oliveira (who'd be in my top 12 but I don't want to jinx him - I want him to live forever), Léos Carax, Tomas Alfredson, Catherine Breillat, Dan Sallitt, David Lynch, Werner Herzog, Jim Jarmusch, David Cronenberg, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Matteo Garrone, Paolo Sorrentino, Takashi Miike, Richard Lester, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Terry Gilliam, Volker Schlöndorff, William Klein, Roman Polanski, Sofia Coppola, & Gene Wilder.

Noah Lyons 

1. David Lynch
2. Jean-Luc Godard
3. Lars von Trier
4. Michel Haneke
5. Woody Allen
6. Werner Herzog
7. Roman Polanski
8. Alejandro Jodorowsky
9. PT Anderson
10. Steven Soderbergh
11. Yorgos Lanthimos


Dan Khan

1. Steven Soderbergh
2. P.T. Anderson
3. Lars Von Trier
4. Agnès Varda
5. Jim Jarmusch
6. Mike Leigh
7. Wong Kar-Wai
8. Terrence Mallick
9. Jean-Luc Godard
10. David Cronenberg
11. Michael Mann
12. Alejandro Jodorowsky


Gifford Elliott

1. Lars Von Trier
2. Wong Kar-Wai
3. PT Anderson
4. Jean Luc-Godard
5. Werner Herzog
6. Woody Allen
7. Roman Polanski
8. Martin Scorsese
9. Jane Campion
10. The Coen Brothers
11. Wes Anderson
12. Alfonso Cuarón

Honorable Mentions: Mel Brooks, Sofia Coppola, Terrence Malick, Steven Soderbergh, Steven Spielberg, Hayao Miyazaki, David Cronenberg, Francis Ford Coppola & Agnès Varda.


Tim Earle

1. Pedro Almodóvar
2. Park Chan Wook
3. Hayao Miyazaki
4. Steven Soderberg
5. Wes Anderson
6. Terence Malick
7. Joel and Ethan Coen
8. Steven Spielberg
9. Martin Scorsese
10. Terry Gilliam
11. Edgar Wright
12. Tomas Alfredson


Fox Johnson

1. David Fincher
2. PT Anderson
3. Joel & Ethan Coen
4. David Cronenberg
5. Ridley Scott
6. Martin Scorsese
7. Michael Mann
8. Steven Spielberg
9. Terrence Malick
10. Wes Anderson
11. Roman Polanski
12. Steven Soderbergh