28 Oct 05
It looks as though Nick Davis and I contributed to the latest addition to The Cinematheque’s The Top 10 project, a compilation somewhat in the vein of Senses of Cinema’s Top Tens, except that we’re also explicitly asked who our favorite ten filmmakers are rather than deriving the information indirectly based on the number of appearances by the director’s films within the list.
As usual, the film choices are always a bit ephemeral, but picking my ten favorite directors proved to be more soul-searching that I thought, deeply rooted in something that reflects more on you as a person than on the filmmaker whose work appeals to you: Mizoguchi’s and Dreyer’s championing of the downtrodden and socially marginalized, Ozu’s and Ray’s profound humanity, Bresson’s and Tarkovsky’s search for a deeper spirituality beyond the empty regurgitations of archaic doctrine, Akerman’s and Angelopoulos’ expositions on cultural alienation that resonate with my own experiences of dislocation and culture shock, and lastly, Marker’s and Resnais’ expositions on the continuum of time and memory that represents - for me anyway - a kind of poetic representation of what greatly inspires me about physics and space exploration and the idea of a grand unified theory that resolves our own interconnectedness.
My Ten Favorite Filmmakers
01. Kenji Mizoguchi
02. Yasujiro Ozu
03. Satyajit Ray
04. Carl Theodor Dreyer
05. Robert Bresson
06. Alain Resnais
07. Andrei Tarkovsky
08. Chris Marker
09. Chantal Akerman
10. Theo Angelopoulos
But anyway, enough philosophizing, what do your choices of favorite directors say about you? 
My top ten (today. Could change tomorrow):
1. Tarkovsky
2. Kurosawa
3. Keaton
4. Hitchcock
5. Kubrick
6. Kieslowski
7. Miyazaki
8. Lynch
9. Clouzot
10.(tie) Wong Kar-Wai /Chaplin
What does this say about me? That it’s mostly about the sensual thrill of the moving pictures (Wong Kar-Wai), and that film has the power to move me to introspection (Tarvkovsky, Kieslowski) while also rousing me to action (Keaton, Kurosawa). That I have a superficial cynical streak (Kubrick, Clouzot, Hitchcock) that is tempered by a childlike sense of wonder (Chaplin, Miyazaki.) Lastly, that I have ambitions to be seen as a multi-layered, emotionally confused lesbian-loving sick fuck (Lynch).
October 28th, 2005 at 1:12 pm
The list I gave to the Cinematheque people went like this:
1. Ingmar Bergman - for revolutionizing the emotional, the bodily, and the spiritual vocabularies of the cinema—often in the same films—and for making misfires almost as fascinating as his enviable treasure-chest of masterpieces
2. Robert Bresson - for such gorgeously wrought simplicity, seeing Life in every detail (but in an inimitably sad way)
3. Andrei Tarkovsky - for daring to be magisterial, wrestling with lofty themes and scales and drawing power, not losing it, from all the strain
4. Charlie Chaplin - for his endless invention and contagious aplomb during the early days of movies, doing something new without abandoning the antique
5. Max Ophuls - for almost every single shot in all of his movies
6. Orson Welles - for his bold, brilliant, and foolhardy Icarus flight of a career, and for still realizing his dreams (different dreams) as the budgets got smaller
7. Alfred Hitchcock - for constantly seeming like someone I’m sick of hearing about, until I watch any of his treasure-chest of masterpieces and thank God all over again that he lived and worked
8. Josef von Sternberg - for the depth of his shots, seeing so far into the third dimension of movies
9. F.W. Murnau - for working so gorgeously in so many genres, and doing so much in so little time
10. Jane Campion - for getting me interested, for always spiking the punch, for pursuing such forcefully personal visions at all costs
October 28th, 2005 at 1:51 pm
That you don’t have Kubrick on your list says something profound about you. I have no idea what (in spite of my 40 credits (or so) in psychology back when or 21 credits in philosophy). I’m just pointing it out.
October 29th, 2005 at 10:48 am
And for reference, my list would be apalling similar to the other Dan J’s so I won’t list it here. That said, right on, other Dan J!
October 29th, 2005 at 10:51 am
Well in my case, I’ve simply moved on.
October 29th, 2005 at 10:54 am
wow, clever.
October 29th, 2005 at 11:21 am
Darn, so I get another 10 IQ points subtracted: 10 for being Catholic and 10 for outgrowing Kubrick?
October 29th, 2005 at 11:30 am
I tried. I really tried. But that sunovabitch won’t quit stalking me.
October 29th, 2005 at 12:15 pm
I have nothing personal with you - I think you’re generally right on. Your ability at the screen-shot quiz genuinely frightens me for all the right reasons. Sorry if I was offending you.
October 29th, 2005 at 1:34 pm
1. Peter Watkins
2. Buster Keaton
3. Chuck Jones
4. Mark Rapaport
5. Brian De Palma
6. Bruno Dumont
7. John Cassavetes
8. David Cronenberg
9. Robert Bresson
10. Gaspar Noe
October 29th, 2005 at 7:18 pm
So, Sol-Rand, what does this list tell us about you? Fess up!
October 29th, 2005 at 7:56 pm
1. H. Hawks
2. K. Mizoguchi
3. S. Peckinpah
4. A. Kurosawa
5. F. Murnau
6. B. Keaton
7. S. Ray
8. M. Ophuls
9. P. Sturges
10. J. Vigo
October 29th, 2005 at 8:41 pm
I’ll throw mine in the fray:
1. Robert Bresson
2. Yasujiro Ozu
3. Kenji Mizoguchi
4. Mikio Naruse
5. John Ford
6. FW Murnau
7. Andrei Tarkovsky
8. Hou Hsiao-hsien
9. Howard Hawks
10. Satyajit Ray
and films, too:
1. Au hasard Balthazar (Bresson)
2. Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi)
3. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (Naruse)
4. Floating Weeds (Ozu)
5. The Searchers (Ford)
6. Sunrise (Murnau)
7. Sans Soleil (Chris Marker)
8. The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch)
9. Dust in the Wind (Hou)
10. Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky)
I probably left a director I really love out of the directors list.
The first two on the films list are interchangeable. The last two tend to sometimes get shuffled out for others depending on my mood, and the Ozu was just a choice of many, but the others have been pretty bedrocked for awhile now…
October 30th, 2005 at 1:13 am
Here I’m trying to have a productive and work-centered weekend, resisting the temptation to flock to Edvard Munch at the local rep house or watch the GreenCine DVD of I Stand Alone on top of my TV… and now Sol-Rand has to go and name Watking and Noé as among his top 10 favorites.
I’m so screwed. But it’s your fault, Sol-Rand.
October 30th, 2005 at 1:53 am
Since I’m apart of the young, twenty-something film generation, my list is probably a reflection of that. I’ll also list my current fav film of said director.
1. Vincent Gallo - Buffalo ‘66
2. Christopher Doyle - Away with Words
3. Edward Yang - YiYi
4. Kim Ji-Woon - A Bittersweet Life
5. Miranda July - Me You and Everyone I Know
6. Hong Sang Soo - The Virgin Stripped Bare by her Bachelors
7. Anno Hideaki - Shikijitsu
8. Kazuaki Kiriya - Casshern
9. Il-Gon Song - Spider Forest
10. Ryuichi Hiroki - Vibrator
The only filmmaker on that list who probably isn’t instantly recognizable is Anno Hideaki, who is more known for his animated work, most notablely Neon Genesis Evangelion. I highly recommend his live-action film Shikijitsu (”Ritual”).
I’m not really sure what this list says about me though . . . any suggestions? (For note, my opinion of Vincent Gallo is based off my personal experiences of actually talking with him and not from reading biased articles in trade magazines.)
October 31st, 2005 at 1:29 am
My Favorites Auteurs :
01. Ingmar BERGMAN
02. John CASSAVETES
03. Sergei EISENSTEIN
04. Yasujiro OZU
05. David LYNCH
06. Satyajit RAY
07. Bela TARR
08. HOU Hsiao-hsien
09. Lars VON TRIER
10. Michael HANEKE
Generally I would rank them according to talent and skills, but since it has to reveal something about my psychology, I selected the ones I’m the most passionate when watching/discovering their films.
I prefer modernists to old classic masters, marginal provocateurs, sophisticated aesthetics in a controlled unconventional freestyle, profound observation of the human nature or tortured psychology, contemplation of duration and silence, explotation of dead times over action and plot…
Bergman, Lynch, von Trier, Haneke explore the darkest sides of love relationships, Lynch and Eisenstein develop a cryptic language reaching out to the realm of symbols. Cassavetes, Ozu and Ray balance out by exposing emotional mundanity through social realism, a concrete spirituality. Tarr and HHH seek meaning within pauses, the weight of time, the tragedy in silences.
I wish I had included the next 10 on my list (Akira KUROSAWA, Andrei TARKOVSKY, WONG Kar-wai, Stanley KUBRICK, Robert BRESSON, Alain RESNAIS, Michelangelo ANTONIONI, Jim JARMUSCH, Alexendr SOKUROV, Takeshi KITANO) who are equally loved but maybe more distant to me because their admirable inspiration doesn’t match mine as intimately, or because I don’t embrace their full filmography.
I’d like to mention “youngsters” as well, with less of career, nonetheless quite promising with a fascinating way of using cinema :
Lucrecia MARTEL
Quentin TARANTINO
Vincent GALLO
Spike JONZE
KORE-EDA Hirokazu
WEERASETHAKUL Apichatpong
Jessica HAUSNER
Sophia COPPOLA
Atom EGOYAN
HONG Sang-soo
October 31st, 2005 at 10:53 am
I’ll take a quick stab at it… I see a gravitation towards films that depict accidental connection in the everyday, but also a penchant for a kind of pensiveness for reconciling the process of living as well the “mystery” of human relationships. Casshern on the other hand, flies in the face of everything I wrote before this sentence.
October 31st, 2005 at 3:06 pm
Harry, your selections actually fit together when taken in the context of form preceding function; it makes perfect sense actually in terms of your field of study. I haven’t seen anything by Jessica Hausner, but I see that she worked on Funny Games. Is she a budding provocateur in the (complimentary) vein of Haneke?
October 31st, 2005 at 3:18 pm
(never posted here before, hello…)
1. Yasujiro Ozu
2. Abbas Kiarostami
3. Ingmar Bergman
4. Werner Herzog
5. Andrei Tarkovsky
6. Akira Kurosawa
7. Jean-Luc Godard
8. Robert Bresson
9. Luis Bunuel
10. Woody Allen
(…I’ve actually never ranked them until just now!)
Since I enjoy film mostly for its psychological, philosophical, and spiritual dimensions, I guess what I really need to figure out here is why exactly Kurosawa (other than Ikiru) and Allen (other than the three “great” films [’77,’79,’89]) are on my list - well all I’ll say is that I still love great adventures and intelligent comedies.
If anyone want to take a stab at this newbie’s psyche, here is an approximation of my second tier for added data points: Dardennes, Dreyer, Hartley, Kiewslowski, Kore-eda, McElwee, Rohmer, Tarr, Tsai, Zimou.
I’d really enjoy any feedback.
Cheers.
PS - Aquarello is one of my favorite critics, and has really helped me get with the program over the last few years. Thank you.
October 31st, 2005 at 6:42 pm
Do you refer to Deconstructivism? Maybe it influenced my vision of cinema indeed, that’s why I credit the mise-en-scene over scenario.
I’m surprised 2001 doesn’t make your top100.
Did you devaluate Kubrick altogether? How far down the line did you push him back?
Yes Jessica Hausner was scriptgirl on Funny Games I believe. She’s an austrian director more acetic than Haneke, less manipulative, she’s primarily interested in uneventful social behaviors. A cross of Kaurismaki with Kore-eda, a depressive contemplation of the idle austrian youth.
I recommend you Lovely Rita that is almost a remake of Kaursismaki’s The Match Factory Girl.
October 31st, 2005 at 8:06 pm
Yeah, 2001 is actually a confluence of two things for me. I’m one of those people who find Kubrick’s work cold, so even though I respect his skill, I can’t say that I can engage with his films on a more profound level beyond the visual spectacle. The other though is that I see too much of Arthur C. Clarke’s fingerprints in 2001, and personally, I’ve always found his kind of popular science to be a bit rudimentary and sensationalist to ever be practical.
Anyway, I’ve been attacked about my impassiveness over Kubrick enough times to know that I’m being steered into waters that I’d rather not wade in, so I’ll curtail my dissent. Satyajit Ray once commented about Kubrick’s films along a similar line actually, that he was always interested in what Kubrick was doing technically, but that his films never appealed to him.
By the way, I’m still scratching my head on decoding jubu’s list.
I always felt that there was some particularity about Woody Allen beyond the intelligent humor that for lack of a better term, is an appeal that is somewhat indigenously New York. It’s kind of a combination of cosmopolitan, bohemian, socially upscale, and self-effacing intellectualism.
What’s really impressive about Kurosawa I think is that, like Kon Ichikawa, he was tremendously versatile in tackling all sorts of genres: action/adventure, mystery/suspense, social drama, satire, comedy, allegory, introspection, and even abstraction. I feel particularly connected to Kurosawa’s work after his suicide attempt, and I think it’s because of the self-doubt, humility, and sense of mortality that seem more tangible in his later work (with the exception of Ikiru), particularly Dersu Uzala and Ran.
October 31st, 2005 at 9:06 pm
I never realized that the late Stanley Kubrick had so many fans on this site. No doubt that says something very profound about you all.
October 31st, 2005 at 9:13 pm
I don’t mind your passiveness over Kubrick, acquarello, I just wanted to know your position. I used to have him at the top of my list, and more directors upstaged him over the years. Is there any sound S.F. to a rocket scientist? I much prefer 2001 over Solyaris.
Same question with Bergman and Kurosawa, where do you place them in your personal pantheon?
I can really relate to your list jubu (other than Godard).
I’d say you are rigorous, respectful of spiritual values like heroism and self-sacrifice, you seek for order in chaos, an overwhelming world of which you struggle to change the rules in vain.
Allen, Kurosawa as well as Buñuel and Godard points to different directions outside the ensemble. But all four are also profoundly humanist and socially concerned with the humorous absurdity of dysfunctional relationships. Hehe, in a nutshell…
I don’t know where you’re from jubu, I notice acquarello and I didn’t list any fellow from our home country. Now what does that mean?
Sol-Rand has the most original list so far. Dan, Nick and Kris are rather classic with a twist. John Warthen is a pure classic. John Henry Pitts, III I like half of your list and the rest I don’t know them.
October 31st, 2005 at 9:58 pm
Don’t worry, it wasn’t directed at you, or Daniel J. or anyone here in particular. It’s just that I’ve had these arguments in the past in other venues and I really didn’t want to rehash it here. I’m not that negative on Kubrick, but when someone is put on the defensive, it quickly polarizes the argument and the shades of grey disappear. The first Kubrick film that I’d put in a list would probably be Lolita followed by Paths of Glory.
Anyway, Bergman and Kurosawa would definitely make my top 15 list, along with Hitchcock, but I’ll concede that I’ve probably seen them a few too many times that the novelty has worn off a little.
October 31st, 2005 at 10:51 pm
Precisely it’s more interesting to know the reservations against a director considered a master by pretty much everyone. First because arguments go beyond the usual laudable cliché, and second because it opens a new perspective on others when you cut the biggest tree in the forest.
I guess what you say also explains why Kubrick and Kurosawa are not on my top watch list, they evolved within genre movies while I grew more interested into filmmakers who invented their own universe with a philosophical/existentialist approach away from stereotypes and conventions. Although they are the best at developping excellent genre movie.
I’d like to see your top100 Directors if you had one. 10 is too narrow to be meaningful except to define the general orientation of a personal taste, as your disclaimer says in your entry above.
November 1st, 2005 at 5:36 am
Hello,
I read some mentions of my Top 10 Project and would like to take this opportunity to (shamelessly) invite anyone here at Cinemarati to take part in the Project. If anyone is interested, just e-mail yr Top 10 Films AND Top 10 Directors lists (along with a short bio and/or web address) to kevynknox@thecinematheque.com. There have been some very interesting lists posted here and hopefully you can share them in the Top 10 Project. Thanx in advance
November 1st, 2005 at 11:28 pm
By the way, the e-mail (from the last post about The Top 10 project) is actually kevynknox@thecinematheque.com
Sorry about that.
November 1st, 2005 at 11:32 pm
I swear I’d join the Top 10 list if I had actually seen more of these classic movies. I don’t feel qualified enough, yet, to offer a substantial list. Maybe in a year, armed with Netflix and other people’s Top 10 lists…
Meanwhile, I’d like to ask those of you who can list your top 10 directors this: What’s the least number of works by any of your listed directors that you’ve seen? In other words, could you possibly have listed one of these directors after seeing only, say, two or three of his/her films?
November 2nd, 2005 at 1:27 pm
Good question. Clouzot’s probably the director I’ve seen the fewest works of–six of his 18. So, that’s my baseline.
November 2nd, 2005 at 1:56 pm
Personally, I don’t think that you can ever have anything more than a general rule of thumb, like Sadao Yamanaka for instance where most of his body of work is lost; Mikio Naruse and Hiroshi Shimizu (and Yasujiro Shimazu, whose films I saw for the first time at the Shochiku retrospective this year) are some others in this boat. Then there are also people like Terence Malick or Victor Erice who haven’t made that many films, but have definitely shown a consistency of excellence (Dreyer is sort of in this boat too).
From the ones I’ve listed, Mizoguchi is actually the one with the lowest proportion of films that I’ve seen, mostly out of unavailability, but I’ve seen about 15 of them. Everything else is roughly 60% (Marker) to 100% (Tarkovsky, Angelopoulos, Bresson) of their entire oeuvre (I’ve seen all 32 extant Ozu films too).
I guess my rough rule of thumb is that I’d feel comfortable if I had seen at least half of the director’s films (at least extant ones). There are some for me though, specifically Akerman and Angelopoulos, where I didn’t feel as though I had a handle on their work until about the fifth or sixth film, and also until I read books about them.
But anyway, lists are for fun anyway, which was why I was thinking that it would be interesting to see which filmmakers people gravitate towards and try to do a match.com personality profile based on those choices.
November 2nd, 2005 at 1:59 pm
I’ve enjoyed reading the above lists and trying to formulate my own. Here goes (and I’ve seen all or the great majority of these directors’ films over my 35 years of serious moviemania):
1. Carl Theodor Dreyer
2. Robert Bresson
3. Kenji Mizoguchi
4. Yasujiro Ozu
5. Orson Welles
6. Alfred Hitchcock
7. Michelangelo Antonioni
8. F.W. Murnau
9. Jean Renoir
10. Max Ophuls
What does this list say about me? Six of the ten directors began their careers in silent films, the rest in the thirties or forties, and all but Antonioni are no longer with us. The films I watch over and over have a timeless quality, a visual grace and eloquence that transcend mere storytelling and that seem largely absent from recent filmmaking. I’ve recently re-watched
Vampyr, Pickpocket, Ugetsu, Late Spring, Citizen Kane, The Wrong Man, L’Eclisse, Sunrise and Boudu Saved from Drowning. A great director continually surprises you no matter how many times you’ve seen his films. Dreyer is perhaps the most visually astonishing director ever, Bresson and Ozu the most spiritually sublime, and Mizoguchi and Ophuls the greatest masters of camera movement. Welles was the most brilliant Hollywood maverick.
Lubitsch, Ford, Lang, Sternberg and Hawks belong in the top ten but there just wasn’t room. Otto Preminger, Nicholas Ray, Sam Fuller, Anthony Mann, and Douglas Sirk make up the next wave of great Hollywood directors from the fabulous and underrated fifties.
To bring my list up to date, I would add Resnais, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Malick, Terence Davies, Wong Kar-Wai, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Abbas Kiarostami and Bela Tarr. That brings the list up to 30 and indicates that like my critical influences, Andrew Sarris and Jonathan Rosenbaum, I have a passion for listmaking.
November 2nd, 2005 at 3:46 pm
Top 10 Directors
1. Luis Bunuel
2. Alfred Hitchcock
3. Fritz Lang
4. Kenji Mizoguchi
5. F.W. Murnau
6. Jean Renoir
7. David Lynch
8. Roman Polanski
9. Akira Kurosawa
10. Martin Scorsese
If there’s a consistency, or least a tendency, to my list it’s the notion of cinema as waking dream. For me, the best films come across as shared dreams.
November 2nd, 2005 at 7:41 pm
There are some Filmmakers - like Vigo, Malick, and to a lesser extent, Dreyer, Bresson and Eisenstein - who only made btween four to fifteen total films - most of which are available to see. Then there are those, like Mizoguchi, Akerman and Angelopoulos whose major chunks of work is hard to find (but never impossible). I believe one should have seen at least half of those films readily available for each Director.
As far as my Top 10 goes (which is somewhat changed around from the list I placed on my Top 10 Project):
1. Bergman (seen about 75%)
2. Murnau (seen 100%)
3. Bresson (seen 90%)
4. Dreyer (seen 100%)
5. Tarkovsky (seen 100%)
6. Bunuel (seen about 50%)
7. Welles (seen 90%)
8. Kurosawa (seen about 75%)
9. Tarr (seen 90%)
10. Eisenstein (seen 100%)
There are other Directors - such as Akerman, Ozu, Mizoguchi and Renoir, whose films I love, but have only seen a small portion so far in my 38+ years. Basically I guess I’m just babbling to hear myself talk, since I don’t seem to have much of a point, so I’ll let it rest for now.
November 2nd, 2005 at 10:03 pm
Since it’s a favorite directors list to reflect personal taste, the qualification requirements aren’t as strict as if we had to put together the “best filmmakers of all time” kind of list…
In my list the seen filmography goes from 35% (Ozu, Eisenstein, Tarr, von Trier) to 70% (Cassavetes) of total filmography.
I’ve seen only 4 films of Bela Tarr but they tally a runing time of 8 90′ films. And 36 Bergmans but that’s under 60% of all his films…
Do we have to watch all the bad films of a given director before to figure if the ones we have seen are impressive enough?
How many available Eisenstein films out of 30, Kevyn?
November 3rd, 2005 at 2:01 am
Eisenstein only completed seven films (almost eight, nearly nine and not quite ten):
Strike! (Stachka) (1924)
Battleship Potemkin (Bronenosets Potemkin) (1925)
October (Octyabre) (1927)
The General Line (Staroie i Novoiei) (1929)
Que Viva Mexico (1931–32) incomplete
Bezhin Meadow (Bezhin Lug) (1936) incomplete
Alexander Nevsky (1938)
Ivan the Terrible, Part 1 (1942, released 1945)
Ivan the Terrible, Part 2 (1945, released 1958)
Ivan the Terrible, Part 3 (1946) – only ten minutes are known to exist
November 3rd, 2005 at 4:12 pm
Thanks. I didn’t know about the Ivan 3.
I caught 2 others shorts (in theatre):
- Glumov’s Diary / Dnevnik Glumova (1923)
- Romance Sentimentale (1930)
So the others on IMDb are all lost? They don’t even exist in a cinematheque in russia?
November 4th, 2005 at 4:25 am
1. Tsui Hark (5)
2. Dario Argento (4)
3. Alfred Hitchcock (4)
4. Richard Lester (4)
5. Mario Bava (3)
6. John Woo (3)
Plus two films by Antonioni, Corman, Godard, Huston, Kubrick, Kurosawa, Leconte, Leone, Masumura, Quine, and Scorsese.
This list would be different if Frank Tashlin’s Fox films were available on DVD.
November 6th, 2005 at 6:12 pm
Its easier doing this Peters way:
(1) Scorsese
(2) John Woo
(3) Takeshi Kitano
(4) Leone
(5) The Coens
(6) Takashi Miike
(7) Depalma
regretfully I don’t have enough European directors and world influence.
November 7th, 2005 at 7:01 am
Based on DVD, Hitchcock would comes in first with just under 50 DVDs. Also, thanks to Panorama DVD’s aggressive Ozu catalog release schedule in Hong Kong this year (in addition to the Criterion releases), I actually ended up with something like 22-23 Ozu films in my collection. The next one would probably be Dreyer with nine (including the Danish release of Once Upon a Time and the UK release of Mikaël), then Tarkovsky with eight.
Curiously, even though my primary method for viewing films is not on home theater, the tracking between favorite filmmakers on DVD and “in general” is still pretty close.
November 8th, 2005 at 1:15 pm
In no order at all, and subject to change at any moment:
Jean Renoir
Max Ophuls
John Ford
Ingmar Bergman
Preston Sturges
Ernst Lubitsch
Billy Wilder
Orson Welles
Akira Kurosawa
Michael Powell
I am afraid this very old-fashioned list says quite a lot about me, but I wear my fuddy-duddyness and romanticism with pride.
November 11th, 2005 at 9:54 pm
1. BUNUEL he is really a mutation !. Very special director (being a friend of Dali, Picasso, etc, also very cult person: “milky way”, for example). I appreciate also his poetry and intuition, and besides all, the freedom filming ( lost today, I Think ). Abstract paintings ( exterminator angel ), humour ( simon ), poetry (andalusian dog, to his friend lorca), erotic (Belle de Jour, social ( los olvidados, in the 1950 year!!, hard film, it seems made last year but a masterpiece ).
2. KUBRICK. Dealing with so many different genres, and
a lot of masterpieces in his 13 films.2001 is my favourite film of all the times. I also like a lot Dr Strangelove, paths of glory, the shinning, clorkwork orange.
3. BERGMAN. Nobody for me has his deeep analisys of the human being and over all, his shadows . His films are not lineal at all, and in my opinion, the good modern cinema has a very big doubt with his legacy ( Woody Allen etc, Lars Von Trier, etc ). Persona, secrets of a marriage, and many others.
4. TARKOVSKI . For me Solaris is a masterpiece (it’s really a big pleasure for me to discover that this tipe of films can be made ) and
others, Stalker, the mirror, etc…). Best movie of all times for me would be 2001 cutting it in the “beyond the infinite” chapter and mixing with the second part of this ashtonisiing film ( imagine Dave’s human feelings of love with his wife in the same room as solaris with that incredible sea!. more humanity than 2001, and better start than Solaris, in my oppinion ).
5. HITCHCOCK. Unique, also is a master dealing in the fields of fear and human desires. Also has a lot of humour. I love psicosis, birds, north by northwest, frenzy.
6. LUBITSCH. More modern that a lot of today films, and also has a very pesonal humor sense, in my opinion. I think there is also a hidden anarchy in his films (that I like)
7. MARX BROTHERS. The same as Lubitsch. They are great
8. TOD BROWNING. In my modest opinion, only with “freaks” has the right to appear here. Wonderful movie.
9. GILLO POINTECORVO. The same as 8 for “Argel battle”.
10. ADOLFO ARISTARAIN. Argentinian filmmaker, IU recognize is one of my weakness of actuality. Also, I like today Argentinian movies.
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:20 pm
01. ROBERT BRESSON
02. LUCHINO VISCONTI
03. PIER PAOLO PASOLINI
04. MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI
05. MICHAEL POWELL (&EMERICH PRESSBURGER)
06. CHARLES CHAPLIN
07. ABBAS KIAROSTAMI
08. STANLEY KUBRICK
09. ANDREI TARKOVSKY
10. F.FELLINI/F.ZEFFIRELLI
June 25th, 2006 at 7:41 am
Here are my 10 favourites, in order of preference :
1) Andreï Tarkovski
2) Theo Angelopoulos
3) Carl Theodor Dreyer
4) Friedrich Murnau
5) Akira Kurosawa
6) Alfred Hitchcock
7) Michelangelo Antonioni
8) Stanley Kubrick
9) Orson Welles
10) Luchino Visconti
But equally with a “very honourable mention” to :
Ingmar Bergman,
Federico Fellini,
Sergeï Eisenstein,
Charlie Chaplin,
Bela Tarr,
Fritz Lang.
So, it would sum up to 16 ! (And only 4 still alive) Sorry…
June 29th, 2006 at 7:49 am
1: John Ford
2: Sam Wood
3: Alfred Hitchcock
4: Howard Hawks
5: Michael Bay (sorry it’s true)
6: Carol Reed
7: David Lean
8: Michael Curtiz
9: Frank Capra
10:Steveb Spielberg.
Most of those are obvious but am sure you will shake your heads at the Bay ref. Oh well.
July 2nd, 2006 at 8:58 am
This is in no particular order, and may contain some names I feel have been overlooked. I have written my favorite of each director’s film in parenthesis.
Werner Herzog (Aguirre: The Wrath of God)
Bernardo Bertolucci (The Conformist)
Fritz Lang (M)
Orson Welles (Citizen Kane)
Roman Polanski (Cul de Sac)
Stanley Kubrick (Barry Lyndon)
Roberto Rossellini (Open City)
Max Ophuls (The Earings of Madame de…)
Ingmar Bergman (Through a Glass Darkly)
Elia Kazan (On the Waterfront)
August 25th, 2006 at 8:33 pm
ah this ones come around again. How adolescent does my previous list look? (No need to answer)
I’ll add Park Chan wook, Miyazaki, Amoldovar, Shane Meadows.
P.S Is it not easy to mention Chaplin. Why not Harold Lloyd or other directors from that period?
August 28th, 2006 at 6:08 am