Directors Whose First Movie Was a Bad Indicator Of Their Future

It is easy to forget that David Fincher (one of my personal favorite directors, known for Seven, The Social Network, Fight Club, Gone Girl, Zodiac, and the Mind Hunter series) first directed Alien 3.

Do you have a favorite? I've seen Kane, Touch of Evil, The Stranger, and Lady from Shanghai, but that's it. Have heard good things about Chimes at Midnight and The Magnificent Ambersons. I also started F for Fake about a year ago, but wasn't really into it so I stopped 5-10 minutes in. Need to get back to it.

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Since you're most likely thinking about The Sixth Sense, the first movie was Praying With Anger, featuring his only starring role to date.

Honestly, it's probably just Kane. Because how could it not be. It's perfect, it is ground zero for modern filmmaking and I find it entertaining and moving and awe inspiring in equal measure.


But something like Touch of Evil is clearly something that is directly appealing to my sensibilities, with it's b movie aesthetics made both sweaty and beautiful. And Ambersons, while considerably flawed next to Kane, has a sprawling and endlessly inventive quality that (if allowed to have been finished as intended) could have been better than Kane.


I really sort of love them all (although the stranger is kind of generic for Welles). As for Fake, it is unique to the point of being alienating if not on its wavelength. But as a piece of film made about film by a filmmaker who understands the similar hustles that exist between art, fraud and sleight of hand, it's close to the best document ever about art and how it is both nothing and everything.

Also Mr Arkadin is frequently overlooked (because no one can agree on what cut is the official cut, as well as the fact that it is an absolute disastrous mess). But for those who want to see a Welles' film presented to them as scraps, giving us an insight into the kind of creative process he used, the movie never hangs together as a whole, but has brilliant moment after brilliant moment scattered through its paranoid and frequently pointless meandering. I love it.

Chimes of Midnight is also probably the best Shakespeare adaptation I've seen. It's dense and impenetrable for those who aren't super familiar with the original works (ie me), but he understands how to elevate that language to something cinematic in a way few have

I stand corrected. Should I watch his first film?

No idea. It does sound interesting though, I could get back to you once I've seen it myself.

Cool.

I'm pretty sure it's well known as being terrible

He also has a second film from 1998 called Wide Awake. The Sixth Sense was his third, but most people mistake it for his first.

And not Fulci terrible? Just terrible, terrible, I take it?

Terrence Malick

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I would say nearly everything MNS has done is terrible terrible, but the fact that even fans of his anemic Spielbergisms find it bad means it's likely terrible terrible terrible with a side of terrible.

I'll defend his first three "major" films as all being very good. Unbreakable in particular is just such a lovely slow-burn and Signs is, while maybe a little schmaltzy, just wonderfully constructed and acted. In particular it's a great example of using suspense to amplify simple comedy.

I still don't really understand what happened to him. It's sad and confusing. There's still a lot of technical talent there (there's a couple of virtuoso sequences in Old, one weird little camera movement thing in particular that caught me totally off-guard), so I maintain a tiny glimmer of hope that. But I think that early run is probably going to stay his best by a wide margin.

Unbreakable, The Happening and pushing a dirty diaper into the face of a germphobic kid rapper are easily the best things he's done.


I have no idea how to rank the rest. Sixth Sense and Signs are respectably bad, and the rest are an utter disgrace of egomania, desperation and middling talent....and because of my perverse inclinations, I might prefer the latter group of films. At least I was embarrassed by them, which is sort of an empathetic response.

How do you feel about The Trial? I usually think it's brilliant, but some watches have left me feeling like it's a self-indulgent mess, so I've decided to average it out and just call it brilliant. But I also wouldn't argue with someone that thinks it's a mess.

It might be the Welles film that suits me most, even though Kane is without a doubt the one I'm going to watch most often.

Also want to say that Othello and Macbeth are full of eye-candy for the cinematogra-philes out there.

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The Trial is also great but it's been a long time since I've seen it. It also doesn't hurt that it's based on one of my favorite books and has Anthony Perkins in it, who was always so much more than just Norman Bates.


Is it indulgent? From my memories, yeah. But when someone is really good at what they do, I will rarely hold this against them. In fact I encourage it, even if it ultimately makes their films less perfect so that they will never stand a chance getting on a supposedly best movies ever list

Edgar Wright (I'm counting Shan of the Dead as his first film not his high school film)
Taika Waititi - Eagle Vs Shark
Guillermo Del Toro (Cronos)
Rian Johnson (Brick)

Tony Scott, maybe? The Hunger didn't indicate that he'd go on to be an action blockbuster master.

There's also Matt Reeves (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, The Batman), who started out with Future Shock, a horror anthology movie that is a must for MST3K fans since it features Soultaker alumni Vivian Schilling and David Shark, a.k.a. the "listen, can't we just rock?" guy.

I dunno, this one fits pretty well. Sure he hasn't made any more horror comedies, but the blend of absurdity with genuine heart as well as the energetic directing/quick editing is pretty reminiscent of his later work.

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I feel like Clerks fits the bill, if only because it is at once the kind of rough proof-of-concept debut that directors make before refining their skills and yet Kevin Smith never really made anything better no matter how much more resources and talent he was able to access.

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