Furious on Film 08.30.07: Issue 103 - Top 100 Directors #25 - #11: Part 1
Posted by Arnold Furious on 08.30.2007
If you think these guys are good, wait for next week!
Furious on Film 08.30.07: Issue 103 - Top 100 Directors #25 - #11
If you think these guys are good, wait for next week!
Hello and welcome to the continuing Top 100 Directors count down. 41,000 words down so far and only two weeks to go. I had it suggested this is actually long enough to serve the basis for a book. Not like my other great idea for a book called "The Perfect Pub" where I go around surveying establishments across the land and determine what each town's perfect pub is. I really can't afford to do it and there is my ongoing alcohol issues as well. It's probably not going to happen. Although I do have an incredibly keen nose for a bad pint. Just last night at the Rovers club; "that's fucked mate, change the barrel". He sniffs at it. "Trust me". I'm like the Jilly Goulden of beer. But anyway, on with the count down. We now reach the top 25. Those in between 25 and 11 have had to have busted out some impressive cinematic masterpieces over the years. Into the top 25 there's more of a consistency. Outside of it I was happily putting younger directors in high positions based on their potential based on existing work. Like Chris Nolan or Darren Aronovsky or Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. To make the top 25 you'd need more than potential. You'd need some severe fulfilment of that potential.
25. FRANK DARABONT (FRANCE)
HONOURS – Oscar nominated for both the Shawshank Redemption and the Green Mile.
RT FRESHNESS RATING – 62%
TOP FILMS – Shawshank Redemption, Green Mile, the Majestic.
THE MAJESTIC
OPINION – Frank Darabont was born in France to Hungarian parents but made his way over to America as an infant. He worked his way into films gradually starting out as a PA then moving up to set dresser while writing on the side. A fan of horror Darabont's first writing credit was on Nightmare on Elm Street part 3. Hardly the most glorious beginning to his career in film. After penning the Blob re-make and the Fly 2 he had a reputation for being able to knock out a quick and reasonable script. He found himself getting work in TV particularly on the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. He also got the chance to make his first film on TV; a horror called Buried Alive. Working on the Young Indy series brought him to important people's attention and he was given the opportunity to direct his first feature film in 1994; the Shawshank Redemption was from horror writer Stephen King but didn't follow his usual violent path. Darabont gave the characters life aided by two great performances from Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins. Shawshank was Oscar nominated and became a huge cult favourite. Everyone I know has a copy of Shawshank Redemption. It's just one of those films that everyone has seen and everyone rates highly. It sits at #2 on the IMDB's Top 250 Movies of all time. It's made the AFI list of the hundred greatest films ever made. Empire magazine's readers voted it the greatest film of all time. It would be fair to say the film has a great reputation among film fans. Darabont took his time to follow up on this fantastic debut and eventually settled on adapting another Stephen King book, and another unconventional one, the Green Mile. Again he had tremendous success critically and got two fine performances from his leads; Tom Hanks and Michael Clark Duncan. The follow up to that was 2001's highly underrated drama; the Majestic. A feel good movie about small town life combined with McCarthyism it suffered somewhat from sentimentality but it was an affectionate look at small town life. Jim Carrey was terrific in it and it was disappointing he didn't get the kind of critical acclaim he probably deserved. Neither did Darabont and the film did poorly. I personally love it but I can't even find one other person that's actually seen it. Even my brother, the big Darabont fan, hasn't seen it. Darabont has taken a back seat since then working as a producer and netting some cash off Collateral. He does finally have a few projects lined up though with another Stephen King adaptation; the Mist and Ray Bradbury sci-fi adaptation Fahrenheit 451.
24. ROBERT ZEMECKIS (USA)
HONOURS – Won an Oscar for Forrest Gump and was also nominated for the Back to the Future screenplay. In 2004 he gained his star on the Hollywood walk of fame.
RT FRESHNESS RATING – 58%
TOP FILMS – Forrest Gump, Back the Future, Cast Away, Contact, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, What Lies Beneath, Romancing the Stone, Used Cars
USED CARS
OPINION – Bob Zemeckis has made some of the most beloved films of his entire generation. The kind of films that make people feel all warm and fuzzy inside and makes them sleep better at night. Knowing that out there is a guy that makes movies that everyone can enjoy without making them lame and sappy. Zemeckis has had a solid reputation since his humble beginnings as a student film maker in the 1970's. His first taste of glory was 1980's crass comedy Used Cars, which is one of my favourites but most people don't rate too highly. I've stuck in my favourite scene from the film to show how entertaining it is. He took his time following it up but did so in 1984 with the action adventure rom-com Romancing the Stone. The film helped to establish both Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner as genuine stars and took advantage of the market opened up by the success of Indiana Jones movies. While Romancing the Stone was always a low rent Indiana Jones and at best a good b-movie that didn't stop it's rampaging success as it pulled down $114M worldwide and another $36M on rentals. The success allowed Zemeckis to bring the world his sci-fi time travel adventure comedy Back to the Future. It was a huge hit and was well received by the public and critics. The film made $350M worldwide and tagged on more than $100M in rentals and spawned two popular sequels. But before he could handle the sequels Zemeckis had something else lined up; Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The incredibly ambitious movie aimed to combine cartoons with real actors, which in 1988 was extremely difficult. Roger Rabbit lead the way and made a lot of the follow up films possible. It also pulled down $350M worldwide and, along with the Back to the Future sequels, made Zemeckis one of the main directors in Hollywood. He followed it up with the somewhat disappointing Death Becomes Her, which goes to show that even big star directors make misfires sometimes. He made amends with the loveable and Oscar winning Forrest Gump, which was one of the top films of the entire 1990's. If we're talking numbers then check out Gump's success; $678M worldwide. Nearly double Back to the Future. Rentals added over $150M more. Since Gump the career of Robert Zemeckis has been a little uneven. He's made a point of trying to do different things while trying to be inventive. He followed Gump with the somewhat overlong Contact. Shame about the ending on that one. After that was another Tom Hanks collaboration on Cast Away. That did very well making $233M in the US alone and getting positive reviews. The same year Zemeckis also worked with Harrison Ford on horror film What Lies Beneath. I think unfairly slated by some critics it's a movie that made me jump a great deal and left me feeling suitably chilled. It was a far more cerebral horror than usual, which turned off some of the potential hardcore audience. Since then he's made kids film the Polar Express and he's scheduled to take on both Beowulf and a Christmas Carol in the years to come.
23. JAMES CAMERON (CANADA)
HONOURS – Won a trifecta of Oscars for Titanic.
RT FRESHNESS RATING – 71%
TOP FILMS - Terminator, Terminator 2, Aliens, The Abyss, True Lies, Titanic.
TERMINATOR 2
OPINION – Originally discovered and hired by Roger Corman, budget film maker deluxe, to work on Battle Beyond the Stars in 1980 Cameron quickly gained a reputation for good action scenes. He got his first directorial gig the following year working on fishy sequel Piranha II: The Spawning. He then wrote and directed a 1984 follow up called the Terminator. The low budget sci-fi action movie was seen initially as a vehicle to get Arnold Schwarzenegger out of the Conan franchise and into something a little more modern. Cameron's ability to stretch the $6M budget allowed the Terminator to look better than most sci-fi films since Star Wars with the robotic effects being particularly strong. Making the Terminator dark and violent marginalised it's audience and it was still a box office success taking $78M worldwide. Pretty good return for the small budget. Cameron's next project was making another sequel. This time for sci-fi classic Alien. He was seen as a perfect guy to do it after the Terminator came out and the decision was a good one. Alien had been a tense thriller with minimal but feral violence. Cameron loaded up on guns and more guns. Aliens became a real thrill ride of a movie taking $131M worldwide and making the franchise globally accepted. Cameron seemed to have somewhat of an obsession with water and made his next project after Aliens the aquatic Abyss. The costly film lost money but looked superb. The underwater shots and the CGI were great and set the standard for special effects that allowed so much of Terminator 2 to work so well. The Abyss has grown on me over the years. Repeated viewings and checking out the super long directors cut have made a fan of me. Of course Cameron's big hit film that made him so very famous was Terminator 2. A sequel to his own work Cameron made the film as big as possible ploughing through an unheard of $100M+ budget. The returns were quite remarkable. Arnold Schwarzenegger at his zenith starred and a shape shifting Robert Patrick played his nemesis. One epic chase scene after another followed and T2 made a small fortune worldwide raking in over $500M. Almost universally loved T2 is probably the ultimate guy movie with explosions and car chases galore but the characters have surprising depth and Cameron's modern myth was a success in every respect. Cameron next worked his magic with Arnie again on True Lies. A slightly older Arnie was at the end of his successful run but Cameron still hit the right beats and True Lies was Arnie's last really good action film. Of course Cameron's last work was 10 years ago but it was quite significant. Made for an enormous $200M Titanic was arguably the most ambitious film ever made. Especially considering the failure of another water based film just beforehand in Waterworld. Cameron's vision came to pass though and Titanic was an enormous success. It grossed an unheard of $600M in the USA and globally went up to $1.8 billion. Since then Cameron has kept himself busy making TV show Dark Angel and working at the tomb of Christ as well as planning future projects, which include the sci-fi epic Avatar.
22. JOEL/ETHAN COEN (USA)
HONOURS – Won the screenplay Oscar for Fargo. Nominated again for O, Brother Where Art Thou? No win the second time around. Barton Fink won the Palm D'Or at Cannes. Unanimously no less. The Coen's also won best director at Cannes for Fargo and the Man Who Wasn't There. Blood Simple won the audience award at Sundance.
RT FRESHNESS RATING – 80%
TOP FILMS – Fargo, the Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou? Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, the Hudsucker Proxy, Blood Simple.
MILLERS CROSSING
OPINION – The Coen's started out making films in the mid-80's scoring underground hits right off the bat. While Joel Coen is the man credited as the director of every Coen's movie he shares the responsibility with his brother Ethan. Hence them being entered together here. When I mentioned there was a brothers team remaining on the count down I was amused at someone incorrectly guessing the Wachowski Brothers. One film does not make a career. Blood Simple was the Coen's first film. Made on a shoestring it created a lot of underground buzz. It was also the first film for Frances McDormand. She stayed around the Coen's long enough to scoop an Oscar later in her career. The second Coen's movie was Raising Arizona. A quirky comedy starring Nic Cage and Holly Hunter the film brought in $22M and proved the Coen's knew what they were doing. Their third film Millers Crossing was a total change of pace. A costume drama set in prohibition America saw some startling performances from the likes of Gabriel Byrne and Albert Finney. Despite the film's apparent genius the box office was sadly no repeat of Raising Arizona. Instead of doing back to the comedy drawing board they instead opted to go even further in a different direction and make the insane Barton Fink. It also lost money but was nominated for three Oscars. It's probably too depressing for the mainstream. Somehow a studio still gave the Coen's a tonne of money to make the brilliant and weird Hudsucker Proxy. Chump Tim Robbins works his way up from the mail room to the top floor with a strange approach to marketing. Paul Newman wants him to fail and lots of really odd things happen. Especially clock maintenance. Bordering somewhere between surrealism and parody the Hudsucker Proxy is just one of those films. It was made for a lot of money and lost a lot of money as a result. Then came the Coen's greatest moment to date; Fargo. The bleak and yet amusing tale of a kidnapping gone wrong featuring slow talking Minnesotans. Fargo was jailed as a masterpiece and finally the Coen's had another hit on their hands. They followed it up with the Big Lebowski. Now a cult favourite it barely recouped it's budget but at least it didn't lose out. Jeff Bridges is brilliant as the slacker wannabe detective called "The Dude". Possibly the most quotable film of the 90's it's my personal favourite from the Coen Brothers. Next was O Brother Where Art Thou? A film infused with a rich blend of old timey bluegrass music and depression era, erm, depression. Since that hit film it's all gone a bit quiet for the Coen's. In particular from their most recent films the Ladykillers has been a failure. Mainly thanks to an attempt to re-do what was essentially a great film that didn't need changing. The Coen's are still going strong though and continuing to come up with interesting and unique projects that continue to challenge their talents.
21. CLINT EASTWOOD (USA)
HONOURS – Eastwood has four Oscars; two each for Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby. He was also nominated for Letters From Iwo Jima and Mystic River. In 1995 he won the Irving G. Thalberg award. In 1996 he was given the lifetime achievement award by the AFI. Four of his films have been up for the Palm D'Or at Cannes with Mystic River winning in 2003. The other nominees were; Pale Rider, Bird andWhite Hunter Black Heart. In 2006 he had the lifetime achievement award from the Directors Guild of America. He's won five Golden Globes over his career.
RT FRESHNESS RATING – 74%
TOP FILMS – Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River, Unforgiven, Letters From Iwo Jima, Flags of Our Fathers, A Perfect World, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, the Outlaw Josey Wales, High Plains Drifter, Play Misty For Me, Heartbreak Ridge, Bird, White Hunter Black Heart.
MILLION DOLLAR BABY
OPINION – Clint Eastwood is one of the single biggest movie stars of all time. He caught his big break in the late 1950's on the TV show Rawhide. As Rowdy Yates he became a household name and soon was able to move into films. In the process he became an iconic star of Westerns throughout the 1960's starring in a string of hits including the Good, the Bad and the Ugly and a Fistful of Dollars. In the 70's he appeared in a series of successful films, in particular Dirty Harry, and began his career as a director. Creatively Eastwood made a big jump from his previous acting work, which although superb was largely generic, and into a far more challenging piece of work with Play Misty For Me. During the 70's Clint was a big star making Westerns, cop films and war movies. He was a man's man. During the 70's he made more films in the line of western that he'd been making with Sergio Leone. High Plains Drifter and the Outlaw Josey Wales were both very popular. Josey Wales is one of the definitive Westerns made in the 1970's. During the 80's it was more of the same. Men's movies like Pale Rider, Firefox, Sudden Impact and Heartbreak Ridge. Into the late 80's Eastwood decided to change track somewhat and started making more personal, smaller scale films that didn't appeal to the lowest common denominator. While Eastwood had proved himself as capable of films in his accepted genres (cop, Western and war movies) as he did as an actor he felt the need to try something new. The result was 1988's Bird. The low key biopic of Charlie "Bird" Parker, a noted jazz musician with personal demons, starred Forest Whitaker and saw Eastwood remain behind the camera. As an actor Eastwood was going through a dry spell and when Bird flopped at the box office it didn't look good for his career at all. His next film was also very low key as he made film about John Huston hunting during the shooting of the African Queen. It was a thinly veiled version of events changing the directors last name to Wilson. Clint's work on more personal efforts paid off when he decided to return to the genre that made him famous. His violent 1992 effort Unforgiven won him two Academy Awards and a reputation as a director with range. Although it's rather amusing he gained that new reputation by going back to an old genre. He was free to make more interesting films and made two offbeat flicks in quick succession; A Perfect World and Bridges of Madison County. While the latter is easy enough to pigeonhole a Perfect World really wasn't. The critics loved it, the public did not. It seemed for quite a while that Eastwood was struggling after Bridges with the bomb Absolute Power, the poor Space Cowboys and the disaster that was Blood Work (a movie that lost $43M). But in 2003 Clint returned to glory with Mystic River. A movie that showcased his directorial talents. The pacing was there. The story was told right. It was a huge improvement over his recent efforts and Clint Eastwood the consistent veteran director had arrived. He topped that with the near perfect Million Dollar Baby. Aside from tweaking at the heartstrings a little too deliberately it was great. Who'd have thought that from a movie about women's boxing? Since then he's had two more great films in Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima. Shot back to back they showed the war from differing sides. Eastwood is now widely considered to be as much as star director as he was a star in front of the camera.
20. SERGIO LEONE (ITALY)
HONOURS - Once Upon a Time in America was nominated for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA but didn't win.
RT FRESHNESS RATING – 93%
TOP FILMS - A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, the Good the Bad and the Ugly, Fistful of Dynamite, Once Upon a Time in the West, Once Upon a Time in America.
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
OPINION – Leone is the least innovative and creative director in my top 20. Borrowing liberally from a host of sources including John Ford, Akira Kurosawa and Francis Ford Coppolla many of his films were even remakes without the credits. His big breakthrough film, 1964's Fistful of Dollars, is a shot for shot remake of Kurosawa's 1961 film Yojimbo. Of course once Leone had established himself he went on to better things in the now famous Dollars trilogy. Eastwood's Man with No Name links the three films. For a Few Dollars More is one of those rare occasions where a sequel outstrips the original. Probably because it's more original than the original. In just three years Leone created and released the trio of films that make up the Dollars Trilogy. The final film, the Good the Bad and the Ugly is rated by many to be the greatest Western ever made. It currently, at time of writing, sits at #4 on the IMDB's top 250 films ever made. While I don't rate it that highly, certainly not the 4th best film ever made, it has to be up there in consideration for the greatest Western. The only real competition it has is High Noon, Shane and possibly the Searchers. The Dollars trilogy was highly successful at the box office and allowed Leone a deal of freedom in his future work. Made on a rather expensive budget at the time of $1.6M the third Dollars movie brought in $19M at the box office. For his next film Leone remained out in the desert making the first part of another trilogy; Once Upon a Time in the West. Many consider this to be one of the defining Westerns but it personally didn't hit the right buttons. That and it's another remake. This time 1954's Johnny Guitar is the source material. The idea behind the second trilogy was to show the ending of the Wild West. The Dollars trilogy showed the West at it's height. The following trilogy would show the decline of the old west. The second film was Fistful of Dynamite, which is also known as Duck, You Sucker. As the middle of the trilogy there's an increasing sign of things to come as it's not a pure Western and there are outside elements being brought in. Not least of all the central character who's a bomber from the IRA placing the timescale of the film some time after 1916. A long time after the Wild West wasn't quite so wild. The third film, and Leone's final film, Once Upon a Time in America deals with the cities rather than the Wild West and spans a huge amount of time in the development of American culture. Centring around Robert De Niro's Jewish gangster Noodles the film spans 30 years and caps off America's period of growth. The opportunities that were once present out in the Wild West were now in the big cities. So the crooks and scumbags made their way from out in the wilds into the big cities and took over. Leone's obsession with the Wild West means that the majority of his work was in that milieu. As a result he's regarded as one of the greatest directors of all time as the Western is often regarded as the purest form of movie. He certainly mastered it.
19. MILOS FORMAN (CZECH REPUBLIC)
HONOURS – Won two Oscars; one for One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and the other for Amadeus. He was also nominated for the People Vs Larry Flynt. Taking Off won the Jury Prize at Cannes.
RT FRESHNESS RATING – 77%
TOP FILMS – One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Amadeus, Man in the Moon, Ragtime, the People Vs Larry Flynt, Hair, Valmont
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST
OPINION – Remember a few issues ago I mentioned how true greatness comes from having experienced hardship? Milos Forman is one of those examples where hardship leads to brilliance. Forman lost both his parents to the Nazis in Auschwitz. A young Forman pushed on alone making low budget comedies in his home country Czechoslovakia. When he visited Paris to try and negotiate a move to America his Czech film company found out and fired him. He moved to New York and began his career in America as an East Coast artist. His films weren't seen by many people but he was a popular figure in New York. In particular his film Taking Off was popular in the underground New York film movement. Because of this reputation he was able to score himself a big time opportunity a few years later. He was chosen to direct One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. He didn't actually want Jack Nicholson in the film though and the two argued incessantly throughout production and haven't dealt with each other since. Made for a mere $4.4M it raked in $112M at the box office and won five Oscars. Forman had arrived. In style. In 1977 he became an American citizen. Who could tell what may have happened had he not gotten the gig on Cuckoos Nest? He may have been eventually forced out of the country although he was working as a film professor in New York and had James Mangold (Walk the Line, Copland) among his students. Given more financing for his next film he made the anti-war movie Hair. He made an unusual decision to avoid a name actor in the lead role, perhaps fearing another clash of personalities like with Nicholson, and the movie was a moderate success instead of the huge success that Cuckoos Nest was. His next film was 1981's Ragtime. The touchy racial tones of Ragtime made it tricky to market and again Forman was only looking at a moderate success. Albeit with a really long movie about a difficult subject. Moderate success is pretty good considering the circumstances. It took me about 15 years to get around to watching it. His next film was the award winning Amadeus. Tom Hulce chewed up every piece of scenery he could find in the starring role as Wolfgang Mozart but Forman sculpted a beautiful backdrop for him to do it in. The period piece was incredibly lavish and required a substantial budget but raked in over $50M and won eight Oscars. Along with Cuckoos Nest it remains Forman's biggest achievement. He then blew an enormous budget of $33M on another period film Valmont. I would imagine you've never heard of it or seen it as it took a tiny fraction of the budget getting an opening weekend of just $96,000 and scraping past $1M. It was a disaster. It was supposed to be this lavish big budget version of Le Liaisons Dangeroux. But while he making it Dangerous Liaisons came out and stole the spotlight. And all the money. And the Oscars. Must have been a real bummer for Milos. After all they spent more money on Valmont. It would seven years before Forman worked again. It was like he'd disappeared entirely. But his return was most unusual and produced one of the most unexpected Oscar nominated films ever made; the People Vs Larry Flynt. Essentially a film about a porn producer it followed Flynt's battles over freedom of speech and starred Woody Harrelson and Courtney Love. Both of whom were superb although Love's junkie may not have been a huge leap from the real world. Since then Forman has twice resurfaced. Firstly with Man on the Moon; a biopic of Andy Kaufman starring Jim Carrey and then with Goya's Ghosts, which went by with little or no fanfare. Forman has constantly made challenging projects with unusually casting choices and frequently the unusual has paid off.
