The Ten Best Working Directors. In The WORLD! - Page 2

(In no particular order)

1. Joe Cornish

2. Nicholas Winding Refn

3. Louis C.K.

4. Quentin Tarantino

5. Edgar Wright

6. Alexander Payne

7. Steven Soderbergh

8. Vince Gilligan

9. Darren Aronofsky

10. Spike Jonze

Edited because I realized I like some guys currently working in television more than any other modern movie directors I can think of at the moment.

1. The Coen Brothers (brilliant AND prolific)

2. Tarantino

3. P.T. Anderson

4. Tomas Alfredsson - Admittedly, this is speculative, but Let The Right One In was terrific and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy appears to be fantastic as well

5. Martin Scorcese - His films may have lost some of their power, but the craft is unparalleled, save for maybe...

6. Spielberg

7. Fincher - I'd like to see him expand his range as well, but his technical mastery is almost Kubrickian (as is his misanthropy)

8. Spike Jonez - Not as prolific, but his films are singular visions

9. Guy Maddin - An acquired taste, but his style is singular

10. Christopher Nolan - The current master of the "personal blockbuster"

I would have had David Gordon Green on this list before Your Highness.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Naisu Baddi 

(In no particular order)

 

1. Joe Cornish

2. Nicholas Winding Refn

3. Louis C.K.

4. Quentin Tarantino

5. Edgar Wright

6. Alexander Payne

7. Steven Soderbergh

8. Vince Gilligan

9. Darren Aronofsky

10. Spike Jonze

 

Edited because I realized I like some guys currently working in television more than any other modern movie directors I can think of at the moment.

But you edited out that comment I meant to respond to later where you used the Coens as an example of directors far past their prime!

So anyway, how can you consider directors who just made four great films in consecutive years far past their prime?  Does not compute, man!

(Then again, neither does putting Cornish #1 just because he turned in one awesome low budget action film.)
 

Well I decided I'd rather not rip on directors who are so popular here, just because their recent stuff didn't do much for me. That's why I erased what I wrote. I suppose it doesn't mean they've lost their touch, but the fact is, I haven't really been impressed with the Coens since "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?". "No Country for Old Men" was a good movie, but I was a little disappointed direction-wise. I didn't think it had enough Coen "flavour". It was merely a competent adaptation of the book, and I prefer when directors put their own stamp on their work. With the Coens, I always hope for some surreal visual quality to their direction, as in movies like "Raising Arizona" and "The Big Lebowski". Even "Fargo" was a lot more trippy. I just dig '90s Coens more.

"No Country for Old Men" came off a little flat to me, and I'm opposed to a re-make of "True Grit" on principle just because I love the original so much. I was really disappointed that they made that. It's a waste of their time and shows a lack of creativity, as far as I'm concerned. Aside from the female lead, I consider the original perfect...really not ideal fodder for a re-make.

And Cornish is listed first because he's the first one that came to mind since I was really, really enthralled by the way he directed his movie. Remember, I said "in no particular order". As for Louis C.K., I know he's only directed two movies (neither of which I've seen), but I feel like with his show, every episode is like a little movie, and he really brings a lot of creativity and thought to the way it's shot. Some of the stuff he does with perspective is very cool (love those "masturbation cam" shots in the vignette "Come On, God") and the show looks unlike anything else on television. The "Breaking Bad" episode called "Full Measure" (directed by Vince Gilligan) was more absorbing to me because of its acting, writing, and direction than any other movie I saw from 2010.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Naisu Baddi 

Well I decided I'd rather not rip on directors who are so popular here, just because their recent stuff didn't do much for me. That's why I erased what I wrote. I suppose it doesn't mean they've lost their touch, but the fact is, I haven't really been impressed with the Coens since "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?". "No Country for Old Men" was a good movie, but I was a little disappointed direction-wise. I didn't think it had enough Coen "flavour". It was merely a competent adaptation of the book, and I prefer when directors put their own stamp on their work. With the Coens, I always hope for some surreal visual quality to their direction, as in movies like "Raising Arizona" and "The Big Lebowski". Even "Fargo" was a lot more trippy. I just dig '90s Coens more.

 

I'm also a fan of the trippier Coen flicks but A SERIOUS MAN proves they still have that in them. Put it this way - I could never see Spielberg directing a JAWS  or an ET now but I can totally see the Coens releasing a FARGO or BIG LEBOWSKI

Not that NCFOM needs me to defend it, but their directing choices were subdued to very good effect.  Their M.O. was economy, because what genre benefits more from economy than a thriller?  Lean and mean is the name of the game, and you'd be pressed to find a better example of it than that.  They also adapted the book brilliantly, streamlining the text and making choices that worked onscreen better than a slavishly faithful adaptation would have.

I feel like True Grit was a real under the radar great film.  It seems weird to say under the radar, since so many people saw it and liked it, but their assessments generally ranged from "solid craftsmanship" up to "very good."  I think it's better than that.

I remember one critic said something to the effect of, there's not much notable incident in the movie, it just sort of happens- and I think that kind of gets it while missing the point.  The film does not want to announce itself.  It does not wear its themes proudly on its sleeves.  It makes its impact gradually, in a matter of fact way.  Like No Country for Old Men, the Coens were deliberately subverting their usual flights of fancy, and flair for well executed overstatement.  (But they did leave in delightful, dark touches of the absurd in both films.)

Okay, you guys have convinced me not to write them off just yet. I think I'll give "A Serious Man" a look. I still feel Spielberg is losing it, though, and I actually have seen several of his recent movies ("Tintin", "Munich"). A few great moments in them, but not very satisfying as a whole.

Writing off the Coens after arguably their greatest run of film since the late 80s/early 90s. Only on CHUD.

Hey, he stated what he liked about their early films, a style that has definitely been downplayed as of late.  And he said he was willing to give them another shot.  Sounds fair to me.

Comparing them to early '90s Coens, their recent work is different. Not worse, just different. But comparing them to everybody else working, they're still easily in the top three of today's working directors. I thought that was the point of the thread.

It is, but not everyone has the same list.  He was put off by their changes, but conceded maybe he needs to take another look.  Ultimately that should be the point of any thread... to get people to watch more movies.

Pedro Almodóvar

Paul Thomas Anderson

Wes Anderson

Darren Aronofsky

The Coen Brothers

David Fincher

Christopher Nolan

Steven Spielberg

Quentin Tarantino

Edgar Wright

I really don't want to troll this thread but I think there's some confusion between the topic (Best directors in the WORLD) and what is being posted (Favourite directors AT THE MOMENT).  I mean, Edgar Wright & Joe Cornish getting mentions but no Kurosawa?  I know it's cheating because I haven't submitted a list (To be honest, pinning it down to 10 is too hard) but I rely on these lists to fill gaps in my movie knowledge and this is fairly disappointing.

Unless Kurosawa has some serious secret mojo going I think he's probably not working much any more.

I'm so dumb.

Re: Putting the Coen Bros in perspective

Compared to the rest of their filmography, I'd say True Grit ranks somewhere in the low-middle.  But it was still easily one of the best films released last year.  And that's not to suggest last year was a weak year for movies - it wasn't; its reflective of just how high they've set the bar.

Even THE LADYKILLERS, inarguably their worst, has something as sublime as the most leftfield Tom Hanks performance since the '80s.

A Serious Man is a masterpiece, if not the Coens' best, then in the top 3. Or maybe 5. See, they've made so many great damn films.

I also think dismissing True Grit because it's a remake does the film a disservice. I find the ending to be almost as stark, downbeat and thought-provoking as No Country.

Blackie's last ride was one of the best scenes in their filmography, and as the landscape rushed passed, the stars wheeled overhead, and the trees loomed, the whole sad episode took on a poetic, almost mythic American quality.

We've had plenty of Westerns that examined the dark side of our sense of violent justice, and how bad guys aren't so bad, and good guys not always so good, but this is also about the dark side of our sense of hard-bitten determination, which is always looked on with such nostalgia, as practically our national virtue.  It's a movie not just about the inevitable passing of things, but about how challenging this country was to forge, and still is to live in.  We may have lost the kind of "hands on" grit that allowed Mattie to calmly scramble up a tall tree and inch out onto a creaky branch to cut down a dead man, but we're no less complicit in the questions of how our choices impact everything around us.  Even the choice between the life of a girl and that of a horse, which is no choice at all, is fraught with pain and difficulty.  It's a movie that quietly implores us to be cognizant of every choice we make, and to not take for granted that every victory comes with some sacrifice.

True Grit stands out in the Coen canon due to its empathy for the characters and its general lack of movie-movie irony. However, the FX nut in me can't abide the terrible compositing of the starfields in the night-ride sequence.

For me, "Best Director" doesn't always mean "Greatest Films". It means someone whose work is always interesting and worth seeking out on their name alone. And that's Joe Dante for me.

Maybe I didn't look that closely.  I took it to be more of a dream-like, or hallucinatory quality.  I thought it was a beautiful sequence.

Just in case, for people that haven't seen True Grit:  

Just in case, for people that haven't seen True Grit:  

I loved the night ride sequence.  God!  Incredible.  The Coens are master filmmakers, and their filmography is so interesting because you can see their development, how they experimented and tried different techniques and storytelling hooks to get to this high level of skill.  True Grit is an amazing movie, and fully realizes the incredible personalities and resonance of the book. 

Bailey, I think you're spot on about the theme of choice and living with the consequences.  And Mangy, agree, it's an incredible sequence.  I think of True Grit less as a remake and more as an adaptation. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hammerhead 

For me, "Best Director" doesn't always mean "Greatest Films". It means someone whose work is always interesting and worth seeking out on their name alone.

This is pretty much how I see it.

I'm surprised by some of the names mentioned. Nolan is a gimmick filmmaker, and his movies are increasingly convoluted and silly. I still go, and I'm still entertained, but I'm not putting him on any short lists. Tarantino has immense talent but as a writer I would prefer it if he were doing adaptations, because he has nothing to say and nothing original to offer.

I was in the Soderbergh fanbase for a long time until THE GOOD GERMAN (hollow, pointless) and OCEAN'S 13 (smug, stupid). I would like to see his documentary on Spalding Gray.

My picks: Werner Herzog, a strange choice considering that the man alternates sublime documentaries with mediocre features (BAD LIEUTENANT, MY SON, MY SON). Takeshi Kitano. I see everything by De Palma, who doesn't work much. Ditto Terrence Malick.

I've warmed to Nolan a bit with his last couple, but I don't think 'gimmick filmmaker' is all that far off the mark. He makes ice cold puzzle pieces that tend not to be about all that much except their own cleverness. Oddly I think Dark Knight might be his most substantial in that the plot was tightly connected to the larger themes and ideas, and they managed to explore those ideas in a focused and logical way, drawing a conclusion by the end of the movie.

I think what he meant about Tarantino is that, post-Jackie Brown, he retreated almost entirely into his own insular Tarantino-land and seemed to become entirely uninterested in goings on outside of his pop culture obsessions. I wouldn't say he's 'unoriginal', cos no one else could or would make films like his, but the jury's still out on how much he really has to say. Inglourious Bastards seemed to have an interesting point of view about catharsis through entertainment, so I'll give him that one. And to his credit he doesn't make throwaways - every new movie expands his body of work in some way.

Writing off Soderberg just cos of two movies (two out of, what, a dozen or so he's made in the last decade?) seems a bit harsh, especially seeing as he's always been a bit scattershot and hit and miss. The things that make him inconsistent are probably his real strengths though - that man is nothing if not eclectic.

I'm sorry, but somebody who thinks that Memento for example is a gimmick picture, doesn't know what the word gimmick means.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul C 

I've warmed to Nolan a bit with his last couple, but I don't think 'gimmick filmmaker' is all that far off the mark. He makes ice cold puzzle pieces that tend not to be about all that much except their own cleverness. Oddly I think Dark Knight might be his most substantial in that the plot was tightly connected to the larger themes and ideas, and they managed to explore those ideas in a focused and logical way, drawing a conclusion by the end of the movie.

 

I think what he meant about Tarantino is that, post-Jackie Brown, he retreated almost entirely into his own insular Tarantino-land and seemed to become entirely uninterested in goings on outside of his pop culture obsessions.

 

This.
 

Couple things:

Inception is a movie bursting with ideas.  It's not about the puzzle at all.  The only question is, does the rather mechanical nature of the screenplay overwhelm the ideas and render the film cold?  But it is not a gimmick movie the way, say, The Usual Suspects is a gimmick movie.

And Memento is even less a gimmick movie.  Its structure is so beautifully integrated into its thematic core that I actually get personally offended when it is labeled as such.

The Dark Knight and Batman Begins demonstrate the Nolan that bores me.  There is very little subtlety, almost no finesse.  And while you could charge Inception with the kind of clunky expository dialogue that the Batman movies are littered with, I felt like in Inception that dialogue was in service of establishing the rules of the world and moving the plot, rather than being used as a crutch to outright state the ideas of the movie.

As for Tarantino: I don't get the charge that he is retreating into his movie-movie world post Jackie Brown.  Most acknowledge Pulp Fiction as his masterpiece, but Kill Bill and Inglourious Basterds can relate just as much to real world things as Pulp can.  Kill Bill is a movie that has two deeply personal relationships at its center.  The breakup of longtime lovers, and the love of a mother for her child.

Basterds, despite its tone, despite taking wild liberties with history, actually feels remarkably alive, even current, to me.  The blood spilled is not cartoon blood.  It is not the blood of stock movie characters repurposed for a movie-nerd's fetishes.  It's violence that an alert audience will have to confront, will have to gauge its own reaction to.  (And you'll see the same thing, with even more force, in Django Unchained.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evi 

I'm sorry, but somebody who thinks that Memento for example is a gimmick picture, doesn't know what the word gimmick means.

It's a movie structured backwards for the sake of setting up twists by hiding information from the audience - that's like the ultimate example of a cinematic gimmick! Doesn't mean the movie's only a gimmick, but it fits the definition pretty well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bailey 

And Memento is even less a gimmick movie.  Its structure is so beautifully integrated into its thematic core that I actually get personally offended when it is labeled as such.

 

Well, my issue is that I'm not convinced the themes and ideas of that movie are all that deep, and it's more about the novelty of the storytelling structure than anything else. I suspect the structure idea was thought up first at any rate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul C 

Well, my issue is that I'm not convinced the themes and ideas of that movie are all that deep, and it's more about the novelty of the storytelling structure than anything else. I suspect the structure idea was thought up first at any rate.

 

Here's how the "gimmick" works for the movie:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bailey 

Here's how the "gimmick" works for the movie:

 

 

Because, like in Irreversible, it suspends each moment in its own bubble, so that the weight of one's actions has to be considered independent of their antecedent, which is vital to the existential themes of the film.

 

Because, on a practical level, it puts us in Leonard's head space.  It makes us struggle to catch up and piece things together just as he does.

 

Because it helps create a hermetically sealed, dream-like quality to many scenes, which allows the audience to lose itself in a film that, in a lot of ways, despite being a thriller, is contemplative in nature.  The final revelation strikes a note of emotional devastation it might not have had it been placed at the end of a story.  It's not a "gotcha" moment, and it's not there to show how clever the filmmakers are.  It's more,"this is the place you were afraid to look all along."  It's what Nolan's best films are all about.  How we get through each day by creating elaborate fictions... by fooling ourselves, essentially.

And it's based on a short story that isn't told in reverse. Nolan thought up the structure specifically as a way of bringing all of that across, not because he thought it'd be neat to make a backwards-movie.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evi 

And it's based on a short story that isn't told in reverse. Nolan thought up the structure specifically as a way of bringing all of that across, not because he thought it'd be neat to make a backwards-movie.

In that case I'll concede that one.

Personally though I didn't find the ending devastating or emotionally engaging in the slightest. I mean the ending undermines most of the emotional investment you might've put in the character and his story. I felt like the revelation that he was basically doing a Sammy Jankis muddied the concept and just added to the sense of that it was mainly concerned with clever mind games - that theme of the lies we tell ourselves strikes me as a touch thin, and not all that related to most of what happens in the movie. It is a clever film, and worth debating. I just don't think being clever is enough to make it truly great.

How is it not related to what happens in the movie?  The movie reveals that a search for truth in a fog is really an elaborate construct designed to obscure the truth.  It doesn't undermine the action of the film, it recasts it in a more disturbing light.  It's about looking into the abyss and seeing yourself staring back.

I have to stand up for Inception.  It's a perfect movie, from the script to the score.  I'm just awestruck by the kind of mind that can create a film with so many layers that all connect within the context of a riveting, entertaining and thought-provoking story with actual flesh and blood characters at its core. 

Apparently I double posted instead of edited.

What I meant is the bulk of the movie is made up of stand alone sequences based around backwards plot twists. There's nothing much there to suggest it shouldn't be taken at face value, so the final reveal has something of a 'Deckard was a replicant all along' quality to it. And again the reveal is more of an intellectual one rather than an emotional one, hence my view that it's an 'ice cold puzzle piece'.

I thought Inception was mostly one of those as well, though the way the actual inception plan gets resolved (i.e. how they got Cillian to change his mind) was both really clever and emotionally affecting, so kudos for that.

I'm not going to comment on the Deckard as a replicant thing, because that has the potential to get off on its own tangent.  I'll use the example of Verbal being Soze.  It changes how you look at Verbal, but it doesn't change the movie, except in the sense that you realize that a lot of it might have been a tall tale.  But, for me anyway, that doesn't connect to anything thematically.  So Verbal is a bad guy (or a worse guy, really) all along.  Does that tell me anything new about the character?  Not really.  It just tells me he was pretending that whole time.

But Memento's ending absolutely tells me something else about Leonard, and his journey.  It tells me that instead of being on a frantic quest to go from A to B, he's desperately trying to stay at A.  To me it's very interesting to reconsider the narrative in such a way.  He remains a tragic character, but with a decidedly darker cast.  Instead of the being a victim of the world, he's the hero and the villain of his own story.

You make a good case, but I still feel the payoff is mostly an intellectual one, built around the cleverness of how it shifts the narrative pieces around and plays with your head. Nolan generally deals with human emotions like a coldly aloof anthropologist. That's not a crime, I just find it often makes his movies difficult to like aside from how (here's that word again) clever they are. I find his movies even colder than Kubrick's - at least those were packed with aesthetic beauty and artistic sensibilities, and had a certain passion and energy to them occasionally. I feel like if he wasn't a movie director Nolan would be just as happy designing elaborate accounting software or something.