Author Topic: Favorite Filmmakers  (Read 11600 times)

Offline ednbarby

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Favorite Filmmakers
« on: August 05, 2006, 12:41:59 pm »
Whose work do you admire the most?  Of course Ang Lee is at the top of probably most of our lists.  I also chose Joel Coen and Stanley Kubrick.  But all of the ones I listed are my favorites, really.  Please let me know yours if they're missing from the list.
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Offline Brown Eyes

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #1 on: August 06, 2006, 12:17:43 am »
Heya Bud,

I voted for four including Ang Lee (of course), Neil Jordan, Woody Allen and Sofia Coppola.  I'd like to add a write-in candidate (actually candidates)... Merchant/ Ivory.  I love their movies.
 :)
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Offline Ellemeno

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #2 on: August 06, 2006, 01:25:36 am »
If I were only allowed one to vote for, that would have been easier to choose - John Sayles, hands down. 

I have a write-in candidate too - Nicole Holofcener.

Three people voted, no overlap so far, except for Ang.  :)
« Last Edit: August 06, 2006, 01:27:51 am by Ellemeno »

Offline ednbarby

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #3 on: August 07, 2006, 06:52:40 pm »
I just added James Ivory and Nicole Holofcener for you.  :)
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Offline Brown Eyes

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #4 on: August 07, 2006, 08:31:28 pm »
Hey Bud,
Thanks!  But, now I don't see how I can go back and change my vote.  I'm not the most computer savy BetterMostian on the block... so maybe I'm just missing something.

cheers
Amanda
 :-\
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Offline ednbarby

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #5 on: August 07, 2006, 09:17:20 pm »
Hey Bud,
Thanks!  But, now I don't see how I can go back and change my vote.  I'm not the most computer savy BetterMostian on the block... so maybe I'm just missing something.

cheers
Amanda
 :-\

I've never been able to figure that out either.  I honestly think it's a feature that just plain don't work.  If only they'd had me validate this system.  Not there's a bug that can throw me.
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Offline henrypie

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #6 on: August 08, 2006, 09:51:00 am »
George Cukor, William Wyler and Elia Kazan are in my personal pantheon.

Offline Ellemeno

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #7 on: August 08, 2006, 06:32:33 pm »
Hey Bud,
Thanks!  But, now I don't see how I can go back and change my vote.

It's an option that the person setting up the poll in the first place can choose to allow or not.  I'm not sure if the poll-setter-upper can go back in later to change or not.

Thanks for Nicole Holofcener, Barb!  I just saw her Friends with Money and was wowed by it.


Offline ednbarby

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #8 on: August 08, 2006, 07:16:11 pm »
It's an option that the person setting up the poll in the first place can choose to allow or not.  I'm not sure if the poll-setter-upper can go back in later to change or not.

Thanks for Nicole Holofcener, Barb!  I just saw her Friends with Money and was wowed by it.

Actually, I did choose that option when I first set up the poll.  But it's weird - when I go back to edit it to add new directors, that option isn't even displayed anymore, like at all.  Sorry I can't help more (or some) with this...

I really enjoyed Friends With Money, too, especially Frances McDormand and Catherine Keener.  I could relate to both of their characters on different levels.  I know that if I had to work with my husband on a daily basis, for example, not only would we split up almost instantaneously, we'd kill each other.  Or maybe we'd divorce and kill each other (couldn't really do it the other way around, could we?)  I really liked her "Walking and Talking" and "Lovely and Amazing," too.  I love talky films when the writer gets how people *really* talk, and she definitely does.
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Offline Ellemeno

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #9 on: August 10, 2006, 01:56:50 pm »
I really liked her "Walking and Talking" and "Lovely and Amazing," too.  I love talky films when the writer gets how people *really* talk, and she definitely does.

I haven't seen Walking and Talking yet.  Lovely and Amazing was painful and amazing.  I love all that talking too. 

One of my favorite moments in Friends with Money that has stuck with me is almost silent, though: Near the end, when the Catherine Keener character is up at her desk writing - alone, because her husband has moved out - she looks over at his now-empty desk, and feels momentarily wistful for him.  She starts to get up to go over and (maybe) caress the desk, stubs her toe, and exclaims in pain.  The nanny, from the other room, calls out something like, "Are you alright Mrs. [Whatever]?"  This instantly aborts Catherine Keener's misplaced sentimentality, as it reminds her of the time she cut her finger with the knife in the kitchen right in front of that asshole husband, who refused to ask if she was alright, or express concern.

Re the poll weirdness, you could PM Phillip or John Passanti and ask, it's beyond me.  Wish I could do it.




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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #10 on: August 14, 2006, 11:08:42 pm »
Can't wait for Chris to get back and see this poll.  I don't call him movie boy for nothing.  Great idea for a poll Barb.  :D

Missing from the list that I also admire are Lawrence Kasdan, John Huston, John Ford, Frank Capra ( the original king of the feel good film) David O Selznik, Otto Preminger, and of course if you want it big, lavish and over the top but not necessarily accurate Cecil B DeMille.

 ;)

Offline Arad-3

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #11 on: August 14, 2006, 11:26:12 pm »
One of my favorite directors that you don't have listed is Ron Howard. He has some excellent Movies under his belt. Apollo 13 (my favorite) A Beautiful Mind, Cocoon ,Cinderella Man, Splash. And yes I relize The Da Vinci Code got some bad reviews but I did'nt see that one because of it's content, but I have enjpyed his work throughout the years.
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Offline serious crayons

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #12 on: August 14, 2006, 11:54:26 pm »
If anybody figures out how to change votes, let me know. Somehow I wound up voting for Robert Redford instead of Robert Altman.

Others whose absense I noticed: Wes Anderson, Peter Jackson, Oliver Stone, Gus van Sant. Oh, and Mel Gibson! (Or were you saving him for your next poll, Most Loathed Filmmakers?)

By the way, I saw "Little Miss Sunshine" yesterday and loved it. I know there's another thread somewhere I should probably post that on, but I figured this one might be more active, and I think everyone should consider seeing it.

Offline ednbarby

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #13 on: August 15, 2006, 09:33:08 am »
I'm sorry, but I reserve the right not to add Mel Gibson.  This is my poll, dammit!  Seriously, if anyone would really like to vote for him, I will add him.

I also added Darron Aronofsky and Danny Boyle - can't believe I forgot them previously.  Pi, Requiem for a Dream and Trainspotting are among my favorite films.
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Offline serious crayons

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #14 on: August 15, 2006, 10:23:08 am »
I'm sorry, but I reserve the right not to add Mel Gibson.  This is my poll, dammit!  Seriously, if anyone would really like to vote for him, I will add him.

Only if we can vote *against* directors and not just *for* them.

Offline ekeby

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #15 on: August 15, 2006, 11:32:02 am »
I would have voted for Barbet Schroeder or Wim Wenders  . . . but these seem to be mostly American directors. I'm surprised you didn't included Kevin Smith, the director who is most like Alfred Hitchcock for publicizing his personna as a director. I think he's now almost more famous than his films are.
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Offline ednbarby

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #16 on: August 15, 2006, 02:31:18 pm »
Color them all added, ekeby.  And my apologies for the lack of non-American directors.  I actually started this ball rolling in the hopes of learning about filmmakers whose work I haven't yet seen, or haven't seen enough of.  It's working like a charm so far.  :)
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Offline ekeby

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #17 on: August 15, 2006, 03:37:22 pm »
Color them all added, ekeby.  And my apologies for the lack of non-American directors.  I actually started this ball rolling in the hopes of learning about filmmakers whose work I haven't yet seen, or haven't seen enough of.  It's working like a charm so far.  :)

no apologies needed and glad to help out . . . I hope I can learn something too . . .
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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #18 on: August 15, 2006, 05:07:10 pm »
Wow...so hard to limit oneself to five only. Ang Lee has to be there, of course, for Brokeback Mountain, which remains the single most important film I have yet experienced. I selected Alfred Hitchcock for his technical brilliance,  historical importance, and enduring poetic resonance (Jean-Luc Godard has written most persuasively of Hitchcock being a rare poet of cinema). Stanley Kubrick made the cut for his exceptional intelligence and visionary sensibility--world cinema lost so much with his death in 1999. Robert Altman is included because he remains one of the most consistently adventurous filmmakers around--his 1970 Brewster McCloud is a personal favorite of mine. Lastly, Elia Kazan got in due to his impeccably sensitive skill as a director of actors; a 1961 classic like Splendor in the Grass represents classic Hollywood filmmaking at its finest, an exemplar of what that industry could produce when inspiration and technical finesse came together so neatly.

Lots of important filmmakers I could recommend for a more inclusive list; in no particular order:

Charles Chaplin--remains the single most important figure in cinematic history. A frequently brilliant and always graceful actor, and a director with a clear visual sensibility of understated elegance, and a high degree of moral engagement.

Lois Weber--one of the earliest female filmmakers, Weber was a master of mise-en-scene, as evidenced by her 1915 masterpiece Hypocrites. This film shows her fully worthy of other pioneers of film art like D.W. Griffith and Victor Sjostrom.

Louis Feuillade--French specialist in thrilling serials during the 1910s. Like Weber, Feuillade achieved early mastery of beautiful mise-en-scene, exhibiting particular flair for staging in depth. Works like the marvellous 1915-16 Les Vampires and the lesser but still rewarding 1916-17 Judex are rife with mystery, elegance, and an uncanny mixture of the sinister and the zany. These serials were highly prized by the Surrealists, whose concerns and strategies they in some ways intimate.

Yasujiro Ozu--beloved Japanese master of the domestic drama (and domestic comedy). Ozu is one of the greatest of all filmmakers, though his movies were slow to make inroads among audiences outside of Japan. My personal favorite of his films is probably also his masterpiece, the 1932 late silent feature I Was Born, But....

Jean Renoir--not one of my favorite film directors, but nonetheless an artist of the first rank, and from all accounts a man of great heart and beautiful spirit. His 1937 La Grande illusion and 1939 La Regle du jeu are justifiably celebrated as classics of world cinema, though neither is a personal favorite of mine.

Michelangelo Antonioni--one of the greatest of Italian film directors. His 1962 masterpiece L'eclisse and the somewhat lesser though still profound 1964 Il deserto rosso remain as haunting and pertinent today as when they first graced art-house screens some four decades ago.

Robert Bresson--austere, deeply contemplative French director of the first rank. Bresson's aesthetic is one of uncompromising rigor, and his moral gaze is ruthless and searing, all combining to make him one of the most important artists to have worked in the medium of film. My personal favorite of his movies, the 1966 masterpiece Au hasard Balthazar, ranks with Brokeback Mountain both in having one of the most devastating endings in cinema and in being one of the most important films ever made.

D.W. Griffith--highly controversial director of vital historical importance. His 1915 The Birth of a Nation, frequently vile and enthralling in equal measure, is arguably the single most influential work in film history. His 1916 Intolerance is fully its equal in technical brilliance while being considerably more humane and warm in its moral vision.

Satyajit Ray--legendary Indian filmmaker who was a real Renaissance man, being equally gifted as draughtsman, graphic artist, and musician/composer. Ray was a pioneer in carving a niche for artistic, personal cinema within the Indian film industry, and he achieved cinematic greatness with his very first film, the 1955 masterpiece Pather Panchali.

Orson Welles--one of the rare figures in film history truly worthy of the epithet of genius. His 1941 debut feature Citizen Kane remains his most celebrated work, but I prefer the quieter, more mature masterpiece that is the 1942 The Magnificent Ambersons, not to mention the scintillating yet gritty 1958 noir classic Touch of Evil, in addition to the frequently exhilarating, perplexing 1974 F for Fake, probably Welles's most personal movie. Welles was a brilliant, exceptionally insightful human being whose vast film legacy is still in the process of being recovered and reevaluated.

Cheers,
Scott

Offline ekeby

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #19 on: August 15, 2006, 06:16:54 pm »
but I prefer the quieter, more mature masterpiece that is the 1942 The Magnificent Ambersons,

wow! couldn't agree more. I've always thought The Magnificent Ambersons the most satisfying of Welles' films, even in its (allegedly) butchered state . . . And Ozu's Tokyo Story . . . one of the best films with one of the best lines of all times . . . .
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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #20 on: August 15, 2006, 06:24:12 pm »
wow! couldn't agree more. I've always thought The Magnificent Ambersons the most satisfying of Welles' films, even in its (allegedly) butchered state . . . And Ozu's Tokyo Story . . . one of the best films with one of the best lines of all times . . . .
Yeah, Robert Wise, a talented filmmaker who I admire and respect, apparently was engaged to modify Welles's original edit, while the great man was in Brazil working on the never-to-be completed It's All True. Still a great film, despite Wise's unwise interpolations.

From Tokyo Story, paraphrasing from memory: "Life is very disappointing, isn't it?" "Yes, it is" (said with a smile). Setsuko Hara was so inutterably beautiful. I like Ozu's The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice, an overlooked comedy from one year earlier (1952), even more than Tokyo Story, which is still probably Ozu's most famous movie.

Offline ekeby

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #21 on: August 15, 2006, 08:01:42 pm »
From Tokyo Story, paraphrasing from memory: "Life is very disappointing, isn't it?" "Yes, it is" (said with a smile).

"Yes, it is" . . . that's the line, and it comes so quickly after the preceding line . . . directly at you from the screen like a spear thrown at your heart . . . truly an amazing moment . . . I've put off seeing other Ozu for too long and intend to see them this year . . . . guess I shouldn't be surprised that somebody else on this board knew this and could quote it! . . . but I AM!
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Offline ednbarby

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #22 on: August 15, 2006, 08:09:18 pm »
I love "The Magnificent Ambersons" and it's my favorite of Welles' films, too.  And my limit of five is silly.  Especially since I've added almost twenty more since I first started the poll.  Vote for all your favorites, and I'll gladly keep adding more as they're suggested.  :)
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Offline SFEnnisSF

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #23 on: August 16, 2006, 02:57:45 pm »
David Lynch is not on the list...  ???

Offline ednbarby

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #24 on: August 16, 2006, 03:13:15 pm »
David Lynch is not on the list...  ???

Oh, my goodness!  It's been so long since I've watched any of his movies, I completely forgot him.  Same goes for Jonathan Demme.  And Ted Demme, for that matter.  And - good grief - Roman Polanski.
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Offline serious crayons

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #25 on: August 16, 2006, 06:38:51 pm »
Barb, it's looking like it would have been easier to go to imdb, get a list of all the directors in the world who have ever lived, deleted Mel Gibson, whoever directed "Police Academy 3" and maybe a few reprehensible others, then copied the rest of the list.

 ;D

Offline dly64

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #26 on: August 16, 2006, 08:42:53 pm »
George Cukor, William Wyler and Elia Kazan are in my personal pantheon.

We are on the same wavelength. I have to also add Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock was the first director I really started to study when I first got into watching classic film. He always takes me on a great ride!

If I had more than five choices, I would have checked off many more directors. As a suggestion …. You could add Preston Sturges  who directed such great films like “Palm Beach Story,” “Miracle of Morgan’s Creek,” “The Lady Eve” and “Sullivan’s Travels.” And then there is the great Billy Wilder who directed classics like “The Apartment,” “Sunset Boulevard,” and “Double Indemnity.”

Great poll!
Diane

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Offline Ellemeno

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #27 on: August 17, 2006, 04:06:03 am »
Barb, it's looking like it would have been easier to go to imdb, get a list of all the directors in the world who have ever lived, deleted Mel Gibson, whoever directed "Police Academy 3" and maybe a few reprehensible others, then copied the rest of the list.

 ;D


ROFL!


Offline Ellemeno

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #28 on: August 17, 2006, 04:06:56 am »
I don't seem to be able to change my votes, or add more.

Offline ednbarby

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Re: Favorite Filmmakers
« Reply #29 on: August 17, 2006, 08:59:54 am »
And I'm not able to change the poll to make it so you can, dear Clarissa.  I swear, I set it up checking the option to allow users to change their votes, but in practice I've never found that to actually work.  I can't even change mine, and I'm the owner of the poll.  Or is that the owner of a lonely heart?  Whichever.
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