Directors who stayed relevant?

Are there really any directors who stayed relevant (having significant and demonstrable bearing on film) throughout their entire careers, beginning to end? A few dips in the career is expected, but I found a lot of directors pitter out towards their last years. Are there any who you personally feel didn't?

There is only one who didn`t make a bad movie throu his carrier and that is Bergman, I wathced about 65% (can`t find some if his works he did for television) of his movies, and for only one I can say that is good, all others are great, or excellent. His style is different from film to film, if you compare eg, Persona and Funny and Alexander there is a clear difference in the narrative style and technical style (not only colour and black and white). The script differs from movie to movie, in The virgin spring, he used a lot of archaistic words, and a soeaking style that is much harder to understand than in his latter works, like cries and whispers. The one thing stays the same in his movies and that is femaile characters, all are unique and different at the same time.

Clint Eastwood has actually improved over time, and although he hasn't reached the end of his career, age doesn't seem to have impaired his abilities, if we can judge by such films as Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, and Gran Torino

I STILL think Eastwood's The Outlaw Josey Wales is his best film, but maybe that was just pure luck. He took over directing for Philip Kaufman so it was probably just a fortuitous set of circumstances, especially since Clint's previous directorial effort was the much-hated (but not by me) The Eiger Sanction. Both films seem to share a looseness-on-the-set vibe, but at least Josey Wales is serious in-between all its classic humor. Sanction is pure camp, but Eastwood always had a campy streak early on... Even so, I think Eastwood is getting better in general although I do feel his more-serious films are just so-serious that some of them almost fall over into camp, depending on how you define the term. I define it more than one way.

I'm just wondering if this isn't a thread where people have to have been alive to make a judgment on whether someone was relevant or not, but I'll admit that sounds unfair. It's just that I don't think any director has made a filmography which stands out far-and-above others, and I know the usual candidates are trotted out: Kurosawa, Kubrick, Bergman, Scorsese, Wilder, Bunuel, Huston, Renoir, Chaplin, Keaton, S. Ray, Ozu, Welles, etc. It's just that the directors you like tend to tell people more about yourself and less about your idol. Just be glad that there are so many directors who are a lot less-flamboyant but can still make you feel good when you watch their flicks, or, if you prefer, that make you feel like you're getting high with Lynch or Cronenberg and sharing a lunch of quinoa while trying to diddle around with gynecological instruments for mutant women.

Movies are a trip.

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Martin Scorsese.
Stanley Kubrick.

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I love The Outlaw Josey Wales, but will admit that Unforgiven may be (note that I said may be) a better movie. High Plains Drifter is another favorite, ande that was also an early film, but if you look at a list of early Eastwood vs his more recent work, I think it shows that has definitely not slipped any in his skills as a director, and it helps that it seems he's not casting from the heart anymore (Sondra LOCKE, for God's sake???)

As for Kurosawa, Wilder and Hitchcock, these are my three favorite directors of all time, but even I have to admit that their greatest days did not lie in their twilight years. For Hitchcock, he was pretty solid throughout his career, up until the '60s. Psycho (1960) was, in my opinion, his last really great film; indeed, one of his best. But after that came The Birds, Marnie, Torn Curtain, Topaz, Frenzy, and Family Plot. All of these are pretty good, but I don't think any of them stack up too well against his best work in the '30s, '40s and '50s. (Of course, this is all my opinion; I know some folks think The Birds is his best film, but I didn't like it all that much, frankly. I honestly like Frenzy, but to compare it to Rear Window, Vertigo, or North by Northwest just doesn't make sense.).

I can't speak to Billy Wilder so much, since I'm pretty unfamiliar with his later work. I didn't care much for The Fortune Cookie or his take on The Front Page (probably the least of tha play's filmic adaptations), but I haven't seen Buddy, Buddy, Fedora, Avanti!, or Kiss Me, Stupid. But as far as I know, the last really, really good film he made was The Apartment (1960) in a career that went on for another twenty years.

I guess the best case for these three could be made for Akira Kurosawa. I haven't seen his last few films, but Ran (1985), made in his later years is unquestionably one of his finest works. the film immediately preceding Ran, Kagamusha (1980), is one that I like a lot, despite the fact that many folks don't seem to like it too much. Prior ro that came Dersu Uzala (1975), which was made after a long dry spell during which Kurosawa fell into despair and attempted suicide. Dersu Uzala is a movie that I wish got more attention. It's not very flashy, and I think you need to sit through the whole thing to really appreciate it, but to me it is a great movie. So yeah, I guess you could say that Akira Kurosawa remained relavent to the end of his career. Was that partly because he didn't really have much of a "middle career," and his filmography is not as large as Hitchcock's or Wilder's? I don't know.

I'm anxious to hear others' thoughts, especially regarding Kurosawa'a and Wilder's last few movies.

gives me some stuff/people to look into more, thanks!