Furious on Film 08.09.07: Issue 101 - Top 100 Directors #75 - #51
Posted by Arnold Furious on 08.09.2007
The countdown continues...
Furious on Film 08.09.07: Issue 101 - Top 100 Directors #75 - #51
The countdown continues
Last week was a long one, huh? Over 17,000 words to be exact. Sometimes when you get started on something and you know you have to get all these little bits and pieces into the column then suddenly you have thousands of words and the point has not yet been reached. Well the original intention was to spread out the Top 100 over two weeks. Week one would feature 100-51 then week two the top half. After the first ten of so of the count down I realised that simply wasn't going to happen and focused on getting the first section done and done properly. So that's what you saw last week. Now I'm being realistic and the countdown will go over four weeks in total. This here is week two. Next week I'll tackle 50-26 and the final week will feature the top 25. So the 100th issue spectacular is now the 100-103rd issue spectacular! The column so big and so 100th that one week cannot contain it! Hope you're enjoying it thus far. Some interesting people coming up in this week's listing. I'm sure someone will be there to complain about the location of their favourite. But hey, that's lists. I don't agree with them but I love reading them. And writing them. Without further ado here's the next 25.
75. WILLIAM FRIEDKIN (USA)
HONOURS Won an Oscar for the French Connection in the early 70's and followed that with a nomination for The Exorcist a few years later. His latest film Bug won a prize at the Cannes film festival last year.
Rotten Tomatoes Freshness Rating 55%
TOP FILMS The Exorcist, French Connection, Rules of Engagement, To Live and Die in LA, Jade.
FRENCH CONNECTION
OPINION William Friedkin, by all rights, should be on a par with Steven Spielberg. He broke into cinema in the early 70's and made the French Connection and the Exorcist back to back. That kind of launching pad should have put Friedkin on the same sort of career path as Spielberg only perhaps with a more adult slant. As it happened he took his time following up on Exorcist and when he did so it was a remake of Wages of Fear starring Roy Schneider called Sorcerer. It was a box office flop. His follow up to that was the poorly received Cruising starring Al Pacino. The combination of director and talent should have made it a hit especially with Friedkin's trademark grisly approach. It didn't turn out that way. His next picture was horrendous and unfunny Chevy Chase "comedy" Deal of the Century. If his previously two films had been badly received then nothing could prepare him for the slating that Deal of the Century got. I reviewed it way back in Furious on Film #14. The horrendous CGI that ended Deal of the Century was embarrassing. Friedkin seemed to struggle in the 80's as the mood for films had lightened somewhat. People were making happy and upbeat movies and Friedkin was making To Live and Die in LA, which is a great film. He went into the bad horror market entering the 90's with evil babysitter movie the Guardian. It seemed as if Friedkin was hell bent on squandering his talent. After all, his early career had him as one of the most promising directors of the 70's. Up there with Spielberg. But as Spielberg was hitting the 90's on top of the world and making his most critically acclaimed work Friedkin was reduced to a mediocre basketball movie with Nick Nolte. That was followed by David Caruso vehicle Jade (there was a time when Caruso was supposed to become a big star). Since then he's been pretty quiet and the only notable is Rules of Engagement starring Sam Jackson, which barely recouped its $60M budget. It's sad that Friedkin is still knocking around but is nowhere near where he should be. He makes the list for his incredible early career alone but his work since his big breakthrough has been uniformly disappointing with the exception of To Live and Die in LA.
74. RICHARD LINKLATER (USA)
HONOURS Oscar nominated for Before Sunset his 2005 sequel to Before Sunrise. He's had success at film festivals ever since his debut Slacker fared well at Sundance in 1991.
RT FRESHNESS RATING 74%
TOP FILMS - Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, School of Rock, A Scanner Darkly, Waking Life.
DAZED AND CONFUSED
School's out!
OPINION I've been a fan of Richard Linklater's ever since I first saw high school comedy Dazed and Confused in the early 90's. After the first time I saw it I went out and bought a copy on VHS, as was the style at the time, and I must have seen the flick 50 times since. It's just one of those movies that are so easy to watch. Great music, fun characters and real entertaining scenes like the hazing and the beer drinking. I have both soundtrack CD's. Check the footage for a young, and fat, Ben Affleck ("I was just escorting your fine son home from school there were some ruffians around"). Fat Ben Affleck is totally awesome. Also features a young Matthew McConaughey and a young Mila Jovovich. It's probably my favourite high school movie ever, just ahead of the Breakfast Club, and one of my favourites films full stop. That would probably be enough to get him mentioned but Linklater has made some really interesting films aside from his more mainstream fun movies (Bad News Bears, School of Rock). Before Sunrise and Before Sunset examines a relationship split by thousands of miles and two chances meetings in Paris that define their lives. I honestly didn't expect the second one to measure up to the genius of the first film. The chance meeting, the day in Paris, the agreement to meet the following year. It was almost a disappointment when I learned they didn't meet up. But they still got the chance to relive the day. Once again they're limited to one day as Ethan Hawke's character has a plane to catch. I would love to see a third film to see where the characters go. It's a near perfect love story. Young love in the first film and a more mature love in the second one. As Linklater ages so do I. So do his characters. He's also taken on some remarkable ideas in film making. When he made Waking Life in 2001 he rotorscoped the whole movie and made it a thick web of theory about death and sleep. It's a bizarre viewing experience dipping briefly into an assortment of philosophical waters. It's a grown up version of Slacker, which featured and assortment of theories on life from youngsters. I'm waiting for the grown up version of Dazed and Confused, if there is such a thing. Maybe that would be School of Rock. Although calling anything Jack Black does "grown up" doesn't seem right at all.
73. YIMOU ZHANG (CHINA)
HONOURS Won a BAFTA for Raise the Red Lantern in 1993 and another in 1995 for To Live. Also nominated for House of the Flying Daggers. Hero should have been a dead cert for honours if it had gotten attention during its actual year of release instead of two years later. Also the Road Home won the audience prize at Cannes in 1999.
RT FRESHNESS RATING 88%
TOP FILMS Hero, House of the Flying Daggers, Curse of the Golden Flower, Raise the Red Lantern.
HOUSE OF THE FLYING DAGGERS
OPINION Any fucking idiot can make wuxia. Making it beautiful as well as entertaining is a different matter altogether. Yimou Zhang has a knack of making fighting look incredibly beautiful. The rise of wire-fu followed the success of Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in the West. There were many copycats and most of them were mediocre. Although when Yimou Zhang brought forth Hero in 2002 it was initially dismissed as another in a line of Crouching Tiger ripoffs. Two years later it found its American audience and made huge inroads at the box office. Combining beauty with violence with a heroic backbone Yimou's film struck a chord with many that saw it. Soon afterwards he had another success with House of the Flying Daggers. This owed a great deal to the beauty of Crouching Tiger starlet Ziyi Zhang. Her star on the rise House of the Flying Daggers almost felt like a star vehicle for her but Yimou made it far more than that. His work with colours transcends normal film making. With his subtle changes of backdrop (and the not so subtle) he can change the mood of the scene before it's even begun. House of the Flying Daggers featured heavy use of colours, which added to the films beauty. The combination of colours and movement made it a visual feast. He's not spend his entire career making epic wuxia's but Yimou seems to have found his cinematic place. He may have even surpassed his predecessors King Hu and Tsui Hark in terms of being a renowned film maker to come out of the Far East. He's yet to attempt a film within Hollywood, which is where Hark went badly wrong, but it could also be the making of the man if he could succeed. After all his films already have a strong following in America. More so than Hark's did before his Jean Claude Van Damme collaborations. Wuxia has become so globally popular that there are even parodies. The most notable being Kung Fu Hustle.
72. SPIKE LEE (USA)
HONOURS Twice Oscar nominated for breakout film Do The Right Thing then again for documentary 4 Little Girls. Was handed a BAFTA in 2002 in recognition of his work. She's Gotta Have It and Jungle Fever both won at Cannes.
RT FRESHNESS RATING 74%
TOP FILMS - Inside Man, 25th Hour, Summer of Sam, Malcolm X, Do The Right Thing, Jungle Fever, Clockers, Bamboozled
BAMBOOZLED
"Niggaz is a beautiful thing"
OPINION Don't blame me for this guy getting in ahead of Dickie Attenborough. You voted for it. Probably because most of you only know him as the old guy in Jurassic Park. Heartbreaking. Anyway, Richard's misfortune is Spike Lee's good luck. Lee is the premiere black film maker in Hollywood and has been ever since Do the Right Thing burst into cinemas in 1989. His debut picture She's Gotta Have It raked in a hearty $7M. Given that as a budget for Do the Right Thing the director scored $27M at the box office and an Oscar nomination. Spike Lee had arrived. His film about racial tension got him noticed and two decades later it remains a gritty and popular essay on the melting pot of America and Brooklyn's own culture in particular. He followed this with Mo Better Blues, Jungle Fever and the critically acclaimed study of Malcolm X. After such a heavy and controversial film he took to making more mainstream movies like Clockers (starring Harvey Keitel) and Girl 6 (Uma Thurman). It seemed as if Spike had taken his films to a different place. And yet he's always tried to remain true to his roots, which shows in the clever parody work in Bamboozled and then putting his serial killer movie right into his old neighbourhood and giving it the slant that only he could with Summer of Sam. Since then he's headed more and more towards the mainstream making the Ed Norton movie 25th Hour and most recently his most mainstream movie and biggest earner Inside Man. It's a sign that Lee has perhaps moved into the mainstream on a permanent basis that a sequel to Inside Man is lined up for next year. Considering his career is only 22 years old he's made 18 feature films and clearly loves his work. He rarely has a misfire (Girl 6, She Hate Me) and is capable of intelligent social commentary on a number of subjects beyond the racial tension of Do the Right Thing that got him started out. He also directed the music video for Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" and made Nike adverts as a lucrative second career.
71. FRANKLIN J. SCHAFFNER (JAPAN/USA)
HONOURS Won an Oscar for Patton but famously didn't turn up to receive it. He was never nominated again. There's a lesson to be learned there.
RT FRESHNESS RATING 83%
TOP FILMS Patton, Planet of the Apes, Papillon, Boys From Brazil.
PATTON
OPINION Schaffner is often overlooked when talking about the great directors. He's certainly not the first name I thought of when compiling this list. But you look at the resume and at least two of his films (Patton and Planet of the Apes) go down as all time greats. Although after Steve McQueen actioner Papillon and the Boys From Brazil his career did fall off quite sharply. His entire run from the 80's was entirely forgettable so it's easy to see where the lack of respect comes from. But there should be respect there. After all Patton is one of the great war films of all time. It had the good fortune to beat another great war movie, MASH, to the best picture Oscar in 1971. Schaffner, as pointed out at the top, was actually born and raised in Japan. He didn't go to America until high school eventually studying law at Columbia University. This run was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II, which he fought in for the US army. He won a series of Emmys for his work in television before hitting the big screen in the 1960's. His first big hit was the iconic Planet of the Apes. A film that spawned four sequels, two TV shows and a big budget Hollywood remake in 2001. It made $32M at the US box office and has become a cult favourite to this day frequently referenced in pop culture. Especially on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and the Simpsons. While the impact of Patton hasn't been quite as extreme it remains one of the most beloved war films. It won seven Oscars including Schaffner's. The famous flag speech is included above for your viewing pleasure. Schaffner is credited with changing television with his camera movements in a time where most television featured static camera shots. His sense of understanding visual concepts have made his films very visually stimulating. The statue of liberty shot for example.
70. TAKASHI MIIKE (JAPAN)
HONOURS Many awards in Asia and at film festivals but nothing major as yet.
RT FRESHNESS RATING 61%
TOP FILMS - Ichi the Killer, Audition, Dead or Alive, Visitor Q, Happiness of the Katakuris, Gozu, Fudoh: The New Generation, Ley Lines.
ICHI THE KILLER
OPINION Including Miike is a personal touch as he's one of my favourite directors who's not had a lot of critical acclaim. His two films to crossover to Western audiences are surprisingly, or perhaps not, far from his best. Audition in particular is heavily reliant on gore and a famous torture scene of great sadism that ends the film. The rest of the movie is incredibly bland almost to the point of boring, which is something Miike is rarely guilty of. His second most famous film and the other big one to crossover to the West is Ichi the Killer, which is far more beloved especially by fans of violent Eastern cinema. Ichi the Killer is one of the premier films of the genre. Of course it also relies heavily on gore and has a stupid ending. Again, it's far from his best work. Most people seem to base their opinion of Miike on these two films, which is a great pity. Because he's such a prolific film maker, making 71 films since 1991 (averaging nearly 5 films a year), he has a huge range of work. He's made two of the most bizarre films I've ever seen. Firstly Visitor Q, which is a mockumentary film of a weird family who have bizarre issues with sexual feelings and bullying. The titular visitor is a guy who just sits there in the families house and watches while everything happens. Everything in Visitor Q includes a scene where the father of the family fucks his daughter who has become a prostitute. Awkward! And that's not even his most bizarre work. Zombie/murder-mystery/musical the Happiness of the Katakuris has to be one of the weirdest films ever committed to celluloid. The ending involves an animated dog surfing on lava and a musical number where one of the main characters drops dead of a heart attack. There are no real words to describe the weirdness of that film. It's beautiful in its total insanity. He also makes normal films usually relating to Yakuza and police. Ley Lines, Rainy Dog and my personal favourite Dead or Alive are all made with that backdrop. Oddly enough I consider those to probably be his three best films. During his mob epics he's almost like a Japanese Martin Scorsese. Certainly during the drug fuelled Dead or Alive. Ley Lines and Rainy Dog are both more personal with the finale of Rainy Dog being the most emotional work Miike has ever done. I'll still stick with Dead or Alive if recommending Miike to someone else though. Action packed with solid performances from its leads Dead or Alive is a real thrill ride right up to the insane ending, which you can't possibly prepare for. It kills me how many times people won't watch the film due to a lack of adventure and I'm forced to explain what happens at the end to them. Then they go and watch it because they have to.
69. HAROLD RAMIS (USA)
HONOURS Won a BAFTA for Groundhog Day and screenwriting awards for National Lampoon's Animal House.
RT FRESHNESS RATING 54%
TOP FILMS Groundhog Day, Caddyshack, National Lampoon's Vacation, Analyze This. He also wrote Animal House and Ghostbusters.
CADDYSHACK
OPINION This is another guy who probably wouldn't make a lot of lists based on great directorial talent but I'm here to reward those people who've kept me entertained my whole life and Ramis has brought to life, with both his direction and writing, some of my favourite films growing up. He wrote Animal House and Ghostbusters for crying out loud. Those are two of the great comedy films of the modern era. Not to mention his three big directorial films; Caddyshack, Vacation and Groundhog Day. All great comedies that people love. The downside is that Ramis has made a lot of crap, hence the 54% freshness rating, and those drag him down a little bit. Remember Club Paradise? Probably not. Not one of Robin Williams' better films. Or Multiplicity? I'm afraid that was one of Harold's misfires too. He also made the crappy Bedazzled but somewhat redeemed himself with Analyze This. I'm still hopeful that Ramis can one day recapture that magic that made him such a fun director in the 80's and 90's albeit without consistency. Even if he doesn't he already has some of the most well known comedies of recent years and not only that they age so well. Everything he directs seems to age well. Caddyshack, some attire aside, is just as fresh today as it was in 1980 and Animal House is never going to get old. Groundhog Day is timeless. Often when you think back to films from the 80's you remember them with a great fondness even though the film hasn't aged all that well. Cheech and Chong, Smokey and the Bandit, Cannonball Run, Porkys, Revenge of the Nerds, Bachelor Party, Police Academy series etc. Stuff that I and a lot of you grew up with but watch it now and quality is hard to find in popular comedy movies. But the stuff that Harold Ramis was writing was good stuff. I probably have more pleasant memories growing up of Ramis films than of someone who specialised in 80's growing up comedies John Hughes. Of course Ramis tackled different material but I still think that says a lot for the durability of his films. I still watch Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day and Caddyshack once in a while now. They're good movies hence his position on this count down.
68. TERRY JONES (UK)
HONOURS - The Meaning of Life won a Jury prize at Cannes and was even up for the Palm D'Or. Amazingly neither of the other Python movies got nominated for anything.
RT FRESHNESS RATING 76%
TOP FILMS - Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian, Meaning of Life,Erik the Viking.
LIFE OF BRIAN
OPINION There's a certain Englishness about Monty Python that's hard to fathom sometimes. It's the way nothing ever goes according to plan and heroes are always reluctant. Or stupid. Terry Jones is a quite superb writer evidenced by his work on Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic. If ever there was a book just begging to be made into a film. But I digress. Jones was one of the famous English sketch group Monty Python. Made up also of more famous actors like John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Graham Chapman. Also featured was animator and now director Terry Gilliam. Monty Python's Flying Circus ran from 1969 to 1974 and had a huge cult following on both sides of the Atlantic. So much so that when the series wrapped up a film was commissioned. The film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail is one of Britain's best comedy films. If not the best. After all the only serious competition for that honour comes from Monty Python's other hugely successful comedy film; the Life of Brian. It's almost impossible to separate the two when searching for the absolute best film. The divide is almost exactly down the middle and both films have come out on top of lists over the years debating the funniest films ever made. As I write this I'm still torn as to which film I personally prefer. Satirically Life of Brian is marginally better but Holy Grail has so many memorable scenes that even now films are still stealing from it. In fact I stole a gag from the Holy Grail just the other day when I was working on my sit-com. The line "alright, we'll call it a draw" from the battle between the Black Knight and Chapman's King Arthur. I could sit here and quote from the film all day long. Some may see that as sad and deluded but the film is just that memorable. After the second Python feature film was completed Jones took more of a back seat to some of the other Python's. Although he did keep busy and made two films during the 80's. Personal Services, starring Julie Walters it was the story of a brothel, in 1987 and in 1989 he made Erik the Viking. Aiming at making a big epic film for the fantasy market he added in the Monty Python slant of humour. It didn't quite work. It ended up being neither one thing nor the other. Somewhat disillusioned Jones didn't direct again until 1996's Wind in the Willows (or Mr Toad's Wild Ride to American readers). While it went over quite well with those who did see it the lack of market resulted in it absolutely tanking taking a mere $72,000 in the States. You'd hope that one day something would come along to persuade Jones to once again don his directorial hat (and puffy directors pants) but it doesn't look like it'll happen. Thanks for the memories though Terry.
67. KEVIN SMITH (USA)
HONOURS Won two awards at Cannes for Clerks and another at Sundance. Has won screenwriting awards for Chasing Amy and has been nominated for Dogma. Clerks 2 won the audience award at last year's Edinburgh film festival.
RT FRESHNESS RATING 52%
TOP FILMS Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Clerks 2, Mallrats, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
CHASING AMY
What's a Nubian?
OPINION I might catch some flak for this choice but I'd catch more from my friends if I omitted Kevin Smith. Say what you like about the guy but he makes funny films. Not only that but films that I can totally relate to. Clerks was very similar to an idea I had at the same sort of time about writing a film set in a store, a liquor store for me but you get the drift, where essentially nothing happens. Lots of weirdoes come in during the day but ultimately nothing changes. I envisioned something quite similar to Clerks only with some more unusual sci-fi elements with my spooky weird great warehouse. Smith had a choice with Clerks. He could end it with nothing happening. I personally like the choice. It makes Smith a friendly fun director who's not going to the dark side. It shows some angst along the way but Clerks ending relatively upbeat shows Smith as the upbeat guy who we've come to love. Had he gone with the original ending, Dante getting shot and killed, how would that have affected his career? Would he have chosen something as lightweight as Mallrats to follow up on Clerks or would have questioned his conclusion and thought about the consequences of writing that ending. Ultimately Dante was him. The guy who worked in the convenience store. He wrote himself to get killed. What does that say about him? Would he have gone into darker and more unusual films after that beginning? Instead he made the goofy but highly enjoyable Mallrats. I don't blame Kevin Smith for the choosing the route he's gone down because he's made a string of fun films for a foul mouthed generation of slackers that I'm proud to be a member of. When Clerks came out I was a chain smoking, beer guzzling slacker store clerk. I got somewhat motivated and found a career shortly afterwards but that film was perfect for my time and place. And then he did it again with Chasing Amy where he made a film in which the lead character is infatuated with a lesbian, which also mirrored my private life at the time. Not only that but Smith's general interests were right up my nerd alley. Conversations about comic books, movies and Star Wars is stuff I easily relate to. In another universe Kevin Smith could easily have been me. I had that darker side and was studying film making with an intention of making comedies with a darker edge to them. I always figured that as we aged eventually we'd touch base again and Clerks 2 certainly did that. It encapsulates how frustrating growing up is. You figure in high school or college that it just gets easier and in a way it does but the older you get the more frustrated you become that you've not become world famous (well, maybe slightly) and you've not written your novel. Or movie. Or sit-com. Or won a million at poker. Or on the lottery. In Dante's case he's still working in a dead end job. But on the upside he nearly got himself shot and killed 13 years ago. He's really doing ok for himself.
66. JOHN CARPENTER (USA)
HONOURS He's won nothing of note, which is really quite shocking and he's not going to win anything these days either.
RT FRESHNESS RATING 56%
TOP FILMS Halloween, The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, They Live, Escape from New York, Assault on Precinct 13, Dark Star.
HALLOWEEN
Best. Slasher scene. Ever.
OPINION I know John Carpenter hasn't made a good film in ages but I grew up on Carpenter movies. He was the next level after the playful fun stuff that Harold Ramis and John Landis were making. Up a level of violence from George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Carpenter was my first glimpse at grown up films. When I was about 11-ish I saw Escape from New York on late night TV. For a few years I referred to it as my favourite film. I'm pretty sure I still have the VHS recording from around 1989 with it on. And yet my friends at school had never heard of it. Nor had they heard of Dark Star recommended to me by my older brother. Carpenter's 1974 debut featured space hippies blowing up planets because they were bored, philosophising with a smart bomb, dreaming of surfing and battling beach ball shaped aliens. It wasn't until years later that I connected these films to Big Trouble in Little China, They Live and The Thing. All by the same director. Not to mention, of course, Halloween. Carpenter seemed to have this incredible run of films through the 70's and 80's where everything he touched turned the gold. 1988's They Live was the last time John Carpenter made something worthwhile but during that 14 year run he made some really great films. I've not even mentioned Stephen King adaptation Christine or Jeff Bridges' vehicle Starman. Unfortunately the 90's saw a series of failures. The Invisible Man movie, Mouth of Madness, crappy Village of the Damned remake, sequel to Escape from New York (although to be fair I've never seen it, I just don't want the original to be ruined), Vampires and the final nail in the coffin; 2001's Ghosts of Mars. Not only Carpenter's worst film but the worst film ever made by a director I respect. Words fail me as to how much Ghosts of Mars sucks. Take that out of his repertoire and he'd probably be 10 places higher. In an act of desperation Carpenter appeared on Masters of Horror with the piece Cigarette Burns. The gore loaded entry was an attempt to curry favour with a disenfranchised audience. While some seemed to enjoy it there's no way it comes off as a John Carpenter movie. It has none of the magic of his earlier work nor any of the subtlety. It's sad to see his career deteriorated to the level it's at today. It seems the only mentions of potential greatness from John Carpenter nowadays are when someone else remakes one of his films. Whether it's Assault on Precinct 13 or Halloween. Surely one or more of his other films will be remade. Escape from New York is already heavily rumoured. Again, I dread to think what will become of one of my most beloved films of my youth.
65. VITTORIO DE SICA (ITALY)
HONOURS Was Oscar nominated as an actor for his performance in A Farewell to Arms. He's won the Palm D'Or as a director twice although not for the movies you'd expect. Miracle in Milan and The Roof scooped the gongs. The Bicycle Thieves/Thief won the Oscar for best foreign film although at the time it was an honorary award. It did win best foreign film at the Golden Globes the same year though. His other big film Umberto D was nominated for several awards including a writing Oscar but didn't win.
RT FRESHNESS RATING 79%
TOP FILMS Bicycle Thieves/Thief, Umberto D, Two Women, The Garden of Finzi-Contini.
BICYCLE THIEVES
OPINION Vittorio De Sica was one of the most important directors of the 21st century. His work at the forefront of Italian neo-realist cinema around the time of World War II helped paved the way for films about normal people. Without the Bicycle Thieves we may never have had success for the likes of Woody Allen in America a few decades later. Or the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone, which were partially inspired by the characters of De Sica's work. Normal folk struggling to get by. Although you could, in turn, cite Jean Renoir as a source of inspiration for the Italians as he was at the forefront and made the incredible Rules of the Game just a few years prior to the neo-realism movement really getting going. In fact if I'd seen Rules of the Game before compiling this list there's every chance the name Jean Renoir would be on it. Just for that one film. De Sica wasn't even the first Italian director to make great films during the period as Roberto Rossellini came first with Rome, Open City in 1945. But what De Sica did was score two incredible pictures during the time and other notables as well. He and Rossellini were the main directors of the movement. Neo-realism isn't much fun as it's all bleak and downbeat but there's something truly beautiful about some of the sequences in Umberto D. While Bicycle Thieves suffers from repeated bouts of irritating characters Umberto D is all about sympathetic characters. Even the dog. It's strangely touching and, like Bicycle Thieves, without an ending to speak of. It's about loneliness and isolation and old age. Everyone is quietly desperate and tired of living. Despite all this it's very alive and emotional. De Sica was a very able director and his pictures are brave and depressing. But he's still not the best neo-realist.
64. JOHN FORD (USA)
HONOURS Winner of four Oscars from the Informer in 1936 to The Quiet Man in 1952. In between he also bagged statuettes for How Green Was My Valley and the Grapes of Wrath. In 1955 the Golden Globes honoured Ford with the "pioneer award". Got the AFI lifetime achievement award in 1973 just before his death. He has a star on the Hollywood walk of fame.
RT FRESHNESS RATING 92% (WHOA!)
TOP FILMS The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Grapes of Wrath, the Quiet Man, Stagecoach.
THE SEARCHERS
OPINION John Ford has been an inspiration to a great many directors. Not least of all Akira Kurasawa who adapted Ford's Westerns into Samurai epics. And then Sergio Leone who adapted them back into Westerns. He was also hailed by many of his piers, such as Orson Welles and Ingmar Bergman, as the greatest director of all time. Obviously I don't have him quite that high but I've really not seen that much of his work. To date I've seen the Searchers and the Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. I think it's an English thing that Westerns aren't quite as popular over here as they are in America. It's a cultural thing. Also while I like John Wayne no one else in my family does. And I don't have many friends who are big John Wayne fans. He seems to be a niche unto himself. Either you love him or hate him. I had the misfortune growing up of not having someone push some John Wayne into my life. I had to find it myself. John Wayne is a staple of most of John Ford's westerns. He's one of these guys that just oozes machismo. He's about as typically male as you can possibly get. He's still popular even today making it onto the list of "favourite film stars" despite being long deceased. Ford himself has a gigantic reputation as a director. The kind it's hard to get your head around. Like entering the world of Alfred Hitchcock for the first time. Until you go back you don't realise where a lot of modern directors inspiration comes from. Ford was up there with most of the greats when it came to being an inspiration. His Westerns have become so iconic that you can't make a Western without ripping off John Ford. Now that's owning your genre. The haul of four Oscars is no fluke and shows Fords to be far more diverse than his reputation. The Quiet Man is a romance set in Ireland, although also starring John Wayne. How Green Was My Valley re-tells a Welsh mining strike. The Grapes of Wrath is a tale of big city life during the Great Depression from John Steinbeck's novel. And so on. This is one director I need to explore more.
63. JOHN MCTIERNAN (USA)
HONOURS Won the AFI Franklin J. Schaffner award in 1997. He then appeared 9 places higher than him in the Furious 100 film directors. Won a few minor awards for Die Hard and was Razzie nominated for Last Action Hero, which was harsh.
RT FRESHNESS RATING 50%
TOP FILMS Die Hard, Predator, Die Hard With a Vengeance, Hunt for Red October, Thomas Crown Affair.
DIE HARD
OPINION There was a point in time where John McTiernan directed Predator, Die Hard and the Hunt for Red October back to back to back. This man is no director. He's a God with a camera! He knows action like no director before him or since. At least that's the way it should have been had McTiernan continued along this glorious path of hit after hit he started onto in 1987. Unfortunately for him his next movie, Medicine Man, was terrible and bombed. He then selected the worst possible time to re-team up with Arnold Schwarzenegger with the tongue in cheek Last Action Hero just at the point where Schwarnegger's career was losing momentum. He took a little time off after the 3rd Die Hard movie in 1995 and hasn't really recovered his film making legs. Notable misfires include Basic and the horrendous Rollerball remake. It kind of makes you wonder where it all went wrong for him. His career was as promising as any director with a string of hit movies that were critically popular despite their content. Die Hard is almost universally praised as being the action movie that totally changed the genre forever. Its odd that having made that film he lampooned the original genre with Last Action Hero and probably shouldn't have been surprised when it flopped. That genre is dead. You killed it yourself. 80's muscleman action flicks died the day Die Hard was released. It seemed to be going so well for McTiernan as well. His clever choice of Hunt for Red October allowed him to make a smart submarine movie that still contained all his trademark action. You can only hope he rediscovers his mojo in future action vehicles as he has three actioners in pre-production for future release. Here's hoping he rediscovers his form and makes a film comparable to those highs he was hitting in the late 80's. If he'd kept that up McTiernan would be the biggest star director in America right now and Michael Bay would be picking up his scraps from the blockbuster pile.
62. DAVID LYNCH (USA)
HONOURS Oscar nominated for three films; the Elephant Man, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive. Wild At Heart won the Palm D'Or at Cannes in 1990. He's won career awards at several festivals including Stockholm and Venice.
RT FRESHNESS RATING 79%
TOP FILMS Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet, Elephant Man, Lost Highway, Dune, Wild At Heart.
BLUE VELVET
Sorry it's so short but I just love the delivery from Dennis Hopper.
OPINION David Lynch; the master of all things weird in cinema. The director of the now legendary cult film Eraserhead. A mixture of anxiety and "troubling things" (Lynch) Eraserhead became an underground smash and allowed Lynch to move on to move unusual mainstream pictures. Eraserhead caught the eye of a producer not normally associated with heavy and weird; Mel Brooks. He hired Lynch to direct his adaptation of the Elephant Man. It set him up as a star director in Hollywood when it garnered eight Academy Award nominations and did well at the box office. Lynch was such a success that George Lucas even offered him Return of the Jedi. Sweet titty-fucking Christ, can you imagine what that one would have been like? The Ewoks probably would have been mutated rats for starters. But Lynch did take on a big budget film as a follow up to the Elephant Man but in typical Lynch fashion it was one of the weirdest mainstream movies of all time; Dune. There are two versions of the film; the regular cinematic release and a studio extended version that runs at 3 hours. Neither was commercially successful and the extended version is so painful to watch that Lynch had his name taken off it. Dune was a box office bomb making only $27M from it's $45M budget. It seemed as if his magical touch had deserted him after just one major success. As part of the agreement to shoot Dune a clause allowed Lynch total creative control over his next film. That film was Blue Velvet. Kyle McLachlan starred in a film about a college student uncovering the seedy underbelly of his home town including a violent mobster played by Dennis Hopper. The ideas at play behind Blue Velvet became very popular in the late 80's and early 90's with many screenplays featuring the seedy underbelly of small towns. Highly influential and a critical success Blue Velvet didn't fare quite so well at the box office although it did make a profit. It found a larger market on VHS and became a huge cult success. Lynch's second film to do so. Amazingly after Blue Velvet the funding just wasn't there for Lynch projects. I think there was fear from producers that anything Lynch made would be box office poison and then later become a cult hit. But studios are infamously fickle especially when it comes to box office so the funding disappeared. It wasn't until 1990 when he got the chance to follow up Blue Velvet with my favourite Lynch film Wild At Heart. Although this was also unpopular at the box office. At the same time Lynch was having huge success in TV where he'd been driven by this lack of funding and brought Twin Peaks to the world. Again, this has become a celebrated cult film even though it was swiftly cancelled thanks to dwindling ratings. You can see how Lynch was probably getting quite frustrated by this point. His later work has featured a few successes though. It seems as though the name of Lynch is respected enough that funding is there for flicks like Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive. The latter being the first film I've seen that I needed the plot explained to me afterwards. Although to be fair I did miss a key scene when I was taking a Gypsies.
61. JOHN FRANKENHEIMER (USA)
HONOURS He's never been Oscar nominated but two of his films were up for the Palm D'Or at Cannes; All Fall Down and Seconds. He was also nominated for two Golden Globes for different films; The Manchurian Candidate and Seven Days in May.
RT FRESHNESS RATING 62%
TOP FILMS Manchurian Candidate, Ronin, Reindeer Games, French Connection II, Birdman of Alcatraz, Seven Days in May, Seconds.
RONIN
Car chases=fun.
OPINION Starting life as a director for television Frankenheimer moved into feature films in the late 50's and had his first major success in 1962 with Birdman of Alcatraz. It also proved Frankenheimer to be a smart man as he warned the studio they shouldn't shoot the entire script because it'd be too long (4 ½ hours to be exact) and wouldn't be able to suffer cuts because that would make it incoherent. He was forced to do so anyway and was proved right. The studio had to shell out for re-shoots but Frankenheimer turned it around and made the film a success. It ended up getting four Academy Award nominations. Suitably impressed John Houseman gave him the reins of All Fall Down, which did well and Cannes and was actually released prior to the troubled Birdman of Alcatraz. His next film was his best; the Manchurian Candidate. It was actually pulled from circulation and disappeared for over 20 years. The suggestion had been at the time that this was due to the content being so similar to the JFK assassination that happened just after the films release. The plot sees a Korean War veteran getting brainwashed by the Chinese to assassinate the president. You can see how that may have been a touch sensitive. Another brick in the conspiracy theory wall for sure. Although Frankenheimer claimed later that the film was pulled because of an argument over the profits involving star Frank Sinatra. Of course this would mean losing all future profits by pulling it but it sounds like a good excuse. Frankenheimer has never shied away from making films that are going to be controversial and shot his next film as Seven Days in May. The plot for which sees a general attempting a military coup in the USA. Frankenheimer's reputation was now so strong that when Burt Lancaster's next movie The Train' was struggling he had the director fired and replaced with Frankenheimer. He had that reputation as a guy that could save almost anything. His first act on the Train was to throw the unfilmable script away and have another written on the fly. It was Oscar nominated. After that was Seconds. A film that was part sci-fi, part horror concerning the mind of an old man being placed in the body of a young man (Rock Hudson). While it wasn't as well received on release as his other work the film gained in popularity and is now regarded as one of his best and most paranoid. The same year he shot the epic Grand Prix. He worked into the 70's making films at a strong rate including the sequel to the French Connection, which is now held in almost as high regard as the original. His career slowed down a little in the late 70's though thanks to his alcoholism. His film career started to get somewhat inconsistent and although there were critical successes there were some notable failures. In particular the Island or Doctor Moreau. Frankenheimer hated the film, hated making it and especially hated the star; Val Kilmer. He famously finished directing the film with his final cut being followed with "now get that bastard off my set". Anyone that hates Val Kilmer is ok by me. He did get the chance to make one last classic when he made the movie Ronin. More car chase than film it allowed the director a chance to make a bunch of action scenes that other people could only dream of. Including the one where they drive head on into traffic.
