Filmmakers beyond criticism
 

Are there any directors that are beyond critics for you ? meaning, even if critics are divided on the film, I will watch it no matter what because a critically divided film by this filmmaker is 100 times better than the best film by almost all other directors ?

For me it's Chris nolan, Tarantino and to a certain extent Scorsese. Because to me, these filmmakers always aim at making an entertaining movie and add to that their incredible talent and skill, if a critic didn't like it then he/she just didn't get it and it's not that the movie is objectively bad.

For me that's the case with tenet. Even though some critics are not hot on it, I know that Nolan is too smart for them and no way in hell can any number of critics deter me from watching it. His track record is too strong for criticism.

Tenet is looking reasonably well-rated for now. I’m seeing it on Wednesday. Otherwise, yes, I always make a point of watching Nolan and Tarantino, but also Lynch and PTA. Others would be Lanthimos and Farhadi. But I find that can change with time and mood. I’m still aware of all their faults, i.e. I don’t actually think they’re perfect, but I watch regardless.

Re: Filmmakers beyond criticism
 

Lanthimos, for sure. Enjoyed every single one of his movies.

Scorcese, definitely.

Definitely have not enjoyed every one of Tarantino’s movies so this would be up in the air.

Re: Filmmakers beyond criticism
 

Darren Aronofsky and Paul Thomas Anderson can generally do no wrong by me. I'm sure I'll always watch a Tarantino flick as well. I'll watch Nolan's stuff, but I can't just disconnect from the criticisms that come to mind while watching his movies. I mean my own, in the moment, and not of media critics. He is hit-or-miss for me.

I'm also treading lightly in the potential bait setup with the lack of intelligence bit.

Re: Filmmakers beyond criticism
 

None whatsoever. I have favourite filmmakers where I will seek out everything they do, sure, but that does not automatically mean that I consider them to be "beyond criticism" to the point where I like every single one of their films without question (or argue that they are all objectively good) and assume that anyone who disagrees is a person who "didn't get it" (I would argue that it is possible to get a movie and dislike it anyway). I like Carpenter and Linklater but that doesn't mean I have to like The Ward or The Bad News Bears. It's one thing to look forward to Tenet because you like Nolan's previous work, but that still doesn't guarantee that it's going to be up to his usual standard or that negative opinions are a reason to get overly defensive about a film you haven't properly judged for yourself yet.

Re: Filmmakers beyond criticism
 

Criticize whoever you want, I don't care, but please make your criticism constructive. Sure, you have the right to think Tarkovsky is boring, or Bresson is pretentious, but it's not really saying anything.

PS: Nolan is a hack.

Re: Filmmakers beyond criticism
 

I have nothing but criticism for Tarantino. As for directors who are beyond criticism? Not in my book! Even my most favorit-est directors can & or will blow it sometimes...,if & when they do, I got me some critical-ism for them.

Re: Filmmakers beyond criticism
 

None. Maybe a better question (and maybe this is what you were actually going for?) is which filmmakers have the benefit of the doubt. Which is to say, to use your example, if Nolan is doing something that doesn't look good, I'll assume there's more to it than I'm seeing. Same for lots of other directors. But once I see the film, the gloves are off. I suppose those same directors, the ones with the benefit of the doubt, will cause me to look a second or even third time and assume that something bad (or even mediocre) might not be, whereas one look would be enough for someone less trusted, but that's it.

I agree with your choices. Add to that Spielberg, and to a lesser extent, O. Stone. I'll freely look forward to anything Spielberg does because his films are almost always enjoyable.

On the subject of critics, I've noticed an interesting pattern, especially on a site like IMDB. When critics and audience opinions are roughly the same, say, 70% favorable, that usually means it's a good movie.

When the audience score is high and the critics scores are low, that generally means it's a good movie.

But when the critics scores are high, but the audience score is low, it's usually an art or woke film...:D

Or maybe we don't have to resort to zero-sum absolutism where critics are wrong about a film unless they conveniently happen to agree with the opinion of the general public (never mind the suggestion that a film can either be good or "art/woke").

Re: Filmmakers beyond criticism
 

I tend to agree that no one is beyond criticism, part of cinema is to criticise, constructively of course.

In response to the original post though, there are a number of directors whose work I always find immensely interesting, even if there may be large failings in it and parts that I am critical of. Some directors' works I will always enjoy watching or find some sort of value out of even if I don't think they're complete success stories. I guess this kind of fits into auteur theory...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B3ujgoLHjg

I definitely don't agree that people like Nolan are above criticism or that the reason some critics give him bad reviews are that he's "too clever" for them. I think that's a simplistic way of looking at things that devalues a lot of work involved in film criticism. Many critics have watched thousands of films from all sorts of eras, by all sorts of directors, with all sorts of plots. I think it takes a little bit of arrogance to believe that you're right and they must be wrong, just because you enjoy the film.

McTiernan ? have you seen all his movies and liked all of them ?

The only director who I’ve loved everything from so far is Kubrick, but I definitely don’t think he’s beyond criticism... plus, I haven’t seen his early films, which are apparently his worst.

Wasn't your whole point that it didn't matter if a person hadn't seen all of a filmmaker's films to deem them "beyond criticism"?

Re: Filmmakers beyond criticism
 

Katsuhiro Otomo and Hayao Miyazaki come to mind.

No.....my point is, after attaining a certain level of consistency and success in their quality of work, filmmakers become immune to film criticism because they have shown enough depth in their work to never fall off. So even the so-called negative criticism is not warranted....i don't count nomads or medicine man to be on the same level as die hard/predator/red october and 3 consistent movies is too little of a sample size to call anyone a great director.
But that's just my opinion....if you think nomads or medicine man to be great movies then thats okay.

Re: Filmmakers beyond criticism
 

I don't follow the logic here. If they're so good that they won't fall off (not sure that's ever the case, but let's assume so for the sake of argument), why would you need to put them beyond criticism? Either they won't make bad films, in which case you don't need to put them beyond criticism, or they do, in which case you shouldn't.

Unless, of course, you simply mean that they're so good that any time you think they've done something bad, you must have simply missed something about it that makes it secretly brilliant, IE: the fault is always with the critic. I mentioned that possibility above, though.

Re: Filmmakers beyond criticism
 

Rollerball looks far worse than Nomads and Medicine Man, but can't say much more since I haven't seen any of them.

Anyway, I guess my answer to the question is no. There are filmmakers I'm always willing to give a chance no matter how much crap their movie gets (I got deeply disheartened by the poor reviews to De Palma's Domino, but will still get around to it eventually), but none that reach any kind of immunity. I love Tarantino, but won't give him a pass for his weak effort Death Proof, nor do I think it's impossible for a director to make something bad.
Yes there are those who without fail have always come out with something good (Nolan is definitely one of them), but that doesn't mean that the possibility of them ever slipping up is non-existent. I just happen to be very hopeful or at least curious whenever he has something new on the way since I admire his style.

A lot of factors go into making a movie great. A script soo good and a producer/studio executive so talented can make a great movie as long as the director is competent enough and not horrible like michael bay.

That is why you get great movies from directors that ultimately turn out to be one hit wonders. But when you make 8 or 9 great movies in a row that are filled with deep concepts and have shown filmmaking skills that are not just surface level you reach a position where you are not gonna make an out and out bad movie that is superficial. You just can't make anything less a well made complex movie.

TBH there aren't that many directors in the history of film that are like that...most of them falter after 4 movies or they already have 4 or 5 bad to mediocre movies before they hit a stride for 4 or less movies and then go off tune(Coppola). It has never happened that a director makes 8 or more great movies and then go off tune completely.

Re: Filmmakers beyond criticism
 

Ah. So you're saying you think some directors are so good for so long that, when a movie is bad, people should assume it's not their fault?

It just has never happened. A director making 9-10 good-great movies then completely going off track. Usually they go off track after 4 or 5 movies not 9 or 10.

I am just saying if a director is so good for so long then he/she has figured out a way to pick and choose right projects that play to their strengths and to make movies that use their best instincts. Its all about developing strong artistic instincts. At max, luck and preparation can get you to 5 great movies but not 10.

You're making a subtle logical error here that you've made before. Remember when you talked about how great blockbuster never flop? Same idea. Maybe the above has never happened (which may or may not be true, but again, we'll assume it is for the sake of argument), but if so, you should be able to spot the problem: we wait until they've either continued to make great films or not to make the proclamation. It's backwards-looking, and not predictive. It's easy to achieve a perfect explanation if it's crafted to exclude all possible counterexamples.

As I pointed out in that other thread (multiple times, with no response), this is what statisticians call "overfitting" (I would highly recommend Googling it). It turns out it's shockingly easy to come up with an explanation for events that have already happened. In this case, it's probably the film cutoff. It could've been five or 10 instead of eight, for example, but the specific nature seems designed to exclude those aforementioned counterexamples.

OR, of course, any counterexamples will be met with "some of those films aren't great." The problem, as always, is theories that are completely unfalsifiable.

Is that a no to my question, then?

I mean, feel free to expound beyond a yes or no, but actually getting a yes or no, as well, would really help clear things up. Which is obviously necessary given how confusing most people find these numerous theories.

Only one. Mario Salieri . Not joking.


Others will get criticised if I don't like something about their work.

I can’t contribute anything near as comprehensive as the above (@Yoda, hat off to you), but I will say Roman Polanski (personal issues aside) had been consistently great for decades, doing well with audiences and critics alike more or less, until The Ninth Gate. That does look pretty bad, compared to the rest of his work, and it’s his nineteenth film (not eighth or ninth). Bitter Moon from seven years earlier wasn’t so great either. Yet he seems to have returned to his pre-Ninth Gate level since then, especially with Ghost Writer and The Pianist, so the cutoff does seem arbitrary. I’m not a huge fan of Polanski, but I do think some great directors can make a one-off awful film and get back in the game after that.

No, they don't. I already mentioned John Carpenter - he had a great 10-film run from 1976-1988 (including some of my favourite films of all-time), but even that doesn't mean that I think the work he did afterwards was automatically immune to criticism (and I write this while using an avatar from Escape From L.A., one of his most critically-reviled films). I think Yoda is right about it being more about giving directors the benefit of the doubt in the face of negative criticism without necessarily forcing yourself into thinking that a director just stops making bad films altogether once they've made x good films in a row. That just sounds like denial and confirmation bias more than anything else.

Re: Filmmakers beyond criticism
 

I mean, this is a common theme in most of these threads: the search for some mythical rule or objective standards to bring mathematical precision to the artistic domain. I guess I can understand that on some level, since the unquantifiable is always a little disconcerting and certainty feels good, but it doesn't really work in these areas.

no, as far as I can tell. there always something worth criticizing, I think.

bree! IT'S NOT REALLY SAY ANYTHING.

I don’t know if it’s possible for anyone or anything to be beyond criticism.

But I do know it’s possible for someone to be beyond saving...

I sense a bait here..i ain't taking it

Re: Filmmakers beyond criticism
 

Dude, half your threads are bait.

Thanks, Miss Ob(li)vious!

Re: Filmmakers beyond criticism
 

There are very few perfect films out there. So yes, every director is worthy of criticism. Nolan is the most overrated director of all time in my opinion, but that's just 1 person's view. Kubrick is rightly revered worldwide but Eyes Wide shut has many critics.

Never finished a single one of his movies.

Coming from anyone else, that might mean something.

Not saying there’s anything wrong with not finishing films, but I think one can’t judge a director without seeing most of his/her work. At least give them the benefit of doubt until then.

Not judging anyone. Simply stating a fact. Take your point up with @ScarletLion not me.

https://media1.tenor.com/images/2948...05b2/tenor.gif

ps: Spielberg is much better than Bela Tarr

I don't think any director beyond criticism...there are several directors whose work I respect, but every director has had a misstep at some point, at least the ones whose work I've seen.

Would you consider taking the "bait" of responding to substantive critiques and disagreements?

Re: Filmmakers beyond criticism
 

I have been a fan of Irish directed Jim Sheridan for years. Many criticized his work of "Dream House" calling it his worse film. I have watched it and I find nothing wrong with it.

Re: Filmmakers beyond criticism
 

Enjoyed every single one of his movies.

No filmmaker is beyond criticism to me. I also don't consider "beyond criticism" and "popular critic reception/division" to be similar conceptsz

Well, it's been a week, so I guess that's a "no."