Favorite Director?

For detailed interviews with all the finest directors you should check out:

http://www.netwiz.net/~rdef/cineparl...neparlance.htm

Easily the best site devoted entirely to directors.

Enjoy

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Personally, I think that Paul Verhoeven is overrated (Starship Troopers-what an awful movie) and Milos Forman is as well (One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is a masterpiece though). But hey guys, whatever floats your boat.

For modern cats:

Atom Egoyan's films are poems; 'The Sweet Hereafter' alone obligates me to put him on my list. Scorsese is the greatest living director: 'Mean Streets', 'Taxi Driver', 'Raging Bull', 'After Hours', 'The Last Temptation of Christ', 'GoodFellas', 'The Age of Innocence', 'Bringing out the Dead', and almost all of his others are terrific. I love the Coen Brothers; 'Fargo' is a masterpiece. I love Oliver Stone for his fearlessness and his obliviousness to his own pretentions, and Spike Lee's films are wonderful. More recently, Darren Aronofsky has gotten my attention. I thought that Pi was good, but Requiem for a Dream has ingrained itself in my memory. It is a great film.

Others: Yasujiro Ozu, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, Satyajit Ray, Kubrick, Antoinioni, Kurosawa, Orson Welles, Woody Allen, Wilder (of course), Renoir, i think Cocteau is sick, and of course...FELLINI AND BUNUEL.

There are so many....by the way, OG, this is the guy you met in school. nice thread, man.

BRIAN DE PALMA SUCKS!

Carrie is a great horror film. And that's all he's done that was actually good, although Scarface is a great guilty pleasure.

HE SUCKS.

Speilberg, in his heyday, was great. But stuff like 'Amistad' and 'Saving Private Ryan' are just overrated swill. 'Schindler's List' was about an hour too long. But man do I love his old stuff...Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, Jaws....good stuff!

Hey man. Nice meeting you in school today. Good to know you actually came to the site.

Verhoeven isn't a GREAT director, just my favorite. All of his movies are entertaining. I mean Hollow Man, Starship Troopers, and Total Recall are by far not GREAT movies. Most have horrible actors etc, but I like the movies because their entertaining. As I was saying to Mark in Gov today, a movie has got to be entertaining, and few GREAT movies are. Like Traffic wasn't entertaining, but Lock, Stock was.

Sam Raimi is a great director, in my opinion. He knows exactly what angels etc to do to the camera. I think hes a genious for what movies he makes. Same with Tim Burton.

Greatest Director is too hard to say, in my opinion. There are just too many.

Oh and welcome to Movie Forums Steve!

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Sam Raimi is terrific. the Evil Dead series is great. and 'A Simple Plan' is one of the best flicks of its year.

I love Total Recall. There, I said it. The thing that bothered me about Hollow Man was the fact that he becomes invisible, and then all of a sudden turns into a maniac. It was like a huge change. The effects were great though.

I thought Traffic was entertaining as hell! Steven Soderbergh deserved his oscar.

Didn't expect the Total Recall part from someone like you.

Lets think about Hollow Man for a second, if you were invisible, would you or would you not abuse your power? I know I sure as hell would. I'd probably go crazy like he did. He just became a maniac because he had this surge of power no one had ever had before. Maybe I'm just trying to defend this movie anyway I can because I actually liked it!

I'd abuse my power most likely, but I know I would...

SPOILERS!

...rape and murder peopele. Even that didn't bother me as much as the fact that the dude was hit over the head with a crowbar, and burned severely, and actually got back up both times.

Not only that, but after knocking him to the ground with the crowbar, one of the good guys puts it down -- I'd beat the dude senseless to make sure he was dead. Morons.

Many of you have forgotten Stanley Kubrick. He is one of the few directors that you can actually call an artist. From dark comedy of world destruction and the fate that binds the men to their mission in Dr. Strangelove to the pure dreamlike sexuallity of Eyes Wide shut. No other director has had such a string of movies that touch you emotionally and make you think. He is a perfectionist and for this his work is perfect. Nobody has a better space movie than 2001. It pits man versus machine in a world dominated by machines. Luckily man prevails in the end and begins a new state of evolution. He is by far the greatest director of all time!

I've got no problems with Mr. Kubrick. I think he made some damn good flicks, although Spartacus is overrated (kind of like Gladiator =)) and Lolita wasn't very good. He had quite a track record though, i must say. Like any 'great' director, you could see any minute of any of his films at random and immediately identify the maker.

Kubrik Sucks It!!

are you freakin kidding me??

Haha, just wanted to see your reaction.

I've only actually seen two Kubrik movies, FMJ and 2001 so I can't really say how great all of his films are, but I will admit he is a good director.

For me: Steven Soderbergh is my favorite director. Traffic is soon going to be one of my favorite all time films. sex, lies and videotape is also a top film. I love his style, his cinematography and the screenplay's he chooses. I can't wait for Ocean's Eleven.

simple question...........Tim Burton!

All of his movies has a different sensation and also feeling while his style stays the same.

his versions of batman are unbelivible.....nearly exact to the comics. And i cant wait for his new film "Planet of the Apes" in august.

Z¥GG¥

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How can you say such a thing!!!!

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Uh, what's up with those funky characters at the end of your posts?

I just have to say that Kubrick is the greatest director ever and that nobody will ever top him. If you want to talk about a person who really loved his work Kubrick is at the top, and if you want to talk about the best he is still at the top. Some of you might say "there are too many directors to choose the best" which I reply with "Make a freakin decision and don't hide behind some stupid comment like that." If any of you feel that Kubrick isn't the best I would like to know why and who is better than him?

Ok Zwee, here's my pick.

The greatest director of all time is YASUJIRO OZU. I choose him because he had his own style. That's something that every great director has, but let me explain-being a Japanese director, his country was isolated from western styles until at least the 1930s. (By style I mean every aspect of cinematic language that was invented, mainly by Griffith's Birth of a Nation.) Every film ever made, with the exception of early Asian cinema (particularily the films of Ozu) has told its story on the foundations of the Griffith film. Yasujiro Ozu was a director who made films like no other, EVER. He invented his own cinematic language, and as a result his films are more like poems than films at all.

Ozu violated every visual rule laid down by western cinema. The camera never moves. THere are no tracking shots, not even small moves. The camera is often placed on the floor, or the level of a tatami mat. Dialogue scenes are shot with the characters not facing each other, so the camera can lend them their privacy. Sometimes the camera is moved from one side 180 degrees to the other, making things seem to switch from one side of the screen to the other. If you'll notice, this is never done in Western films, because it breaks the line between the audience and the story. Japanese poets sometimes use "pillow words", stray words to provide rhythm between lines. Ozu uses pillow shots to connect scenes and to allow us to consider the beauty in ordinary things. His style invites the viewer to contemplate and take part in his films, making the emotions in them magnified tenfold.

The films themselves are all wonderful. They are quiet, almost always family dramas, dealing with rites of passage and changes in everyday lives. Films are stories, ABOUT emotions. His movies are so beautiful, so tender, so loving towards their characters, that emotions flow through the audience freely. I've never met a person who has seen his "Tokyo Story" and had dry eyes afterward. All of his films are masterpieces. He never made a bad one.

If any of you have seen any of his films, you have an idea of what i'm talking about. If not, then I recommend Tokyo Story, Floating Weeds, Early Spring, Late Spring, and Autumn Afternoon.

Not to take away from Stanley Kubrick, because he is indeed one of the greatest of all filmmakers.

Zwee, why is Kubrick the greatest? You never have explained it completely to me.

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I will have to watch some Ozu movies in order to get what you are saying, and I admit to having a somewhat closed vision when it comes to foreign movies. As far as I can tell though Kubrick is the greatest director of all time.

Kubrick is a master at his art he takes into account every detail when it comes to portraying a scene, he uses lighting and camera movement, also all of his movies seem to involve very important and mature themes.

By detail I mean the way in which he will meticulously (spelling)plan a scene and an entire movie for that fact. I'm sure that many of you have heard of the nightmare stories of him having 50 takes during some scenes in the shining or of him being ruthless with his actors. All of this shows the amount of control he holds over his movies and without control over the movie I feel that something is lost in the way of being an artist. Also everyone knows how long he took to make Eyes Wide Shut. I feel that this movie in particular will take time to catch on as a true masterpiece much like it took time for Citizen Kane to catch on.

OK I'm going to stop myself because I sure as hell don't want to write everything I love about Stanley Kubrick and I'm sure you don't want to read it, so I'll sum up.

I differ with you steve as to what a movie should be. I think that emotion should be second to conveying a message in a movie. Or in some cases I enjoy a good dip into the psychological aspect of a movie. This is why I love Kubrick he would always tell you something through his movies.

Finally who can ignore the vision and creative thought that had to have gone into such movies as 2001, A Clockwork Orange, or Eyes Wide Shut. Often people say they want to be shown something new and exciting in a movie and these movies did.

The main reason I loved Kubrick is because he had control. He was the painter and the film was his canvass, and he never let the brush take control of his art.

Most definitely. Well worded.

2001, for me, is one of the most transcendent of all films. I can only imagine the planning and attention to detail that went into even the smallest sequences. And yes, Eyes Wide Shut was misunderstood by nearly everybody, much like Gladiator. (sorry, I had to throw that in there ) And Dr. Strangelove has got to be the most wicked satire ever filmed.

I disagree with you about messages though. The message of a film grows FROM the emotions. Kubrick's films showed us new things and told us about society, human nature, and the like, but they did this through the emotions. If nothing else, think about it this way: the message of the first half of Full Metal Jacket wouldn't, COULDN'T have been conveyed if Private Pyle hadn't (SPOILER!) gone insane. His emotions are what Kubrick uses to get across his point. See what I'm saying?