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Topic:
Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever: 40. David Lean
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Jango10
Registered:
Sep '02
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Date Posted:
8/28/07 7:33pm
Subject:
Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever: 40. David Lean
- Date Edited:
10/3 6:28pm (60 edits total)
Edited By:
Zaz
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I found this on IMDB.com today:
It took months of bickering – sorry, discussion – and weeks of sulking – sorry, reflecting – but here, finally, is Total Film’s locked down, rubber-stamped, definitive selection…
100. Abel Ferrara
The street punk
There’s nothing nice about Abel, a guttersnipe with a taste for the outré. His films are grubby notes from the underground lacking taste or (infuriatingly) quality control: rape-revenge in Ms 45, a muddled Madonna in Dangerous Game, gangster chic in King Of New York, Christian confusion in Mary. He’s like Scorsese’s kid brother, not as talented but cut from the same cloth of street Catholicism, violent redemption and cine-passion: “We’re just trying to make one good movie. Not even one good movie. We’re just trying to shoot one great scene…”
Picture perfect Bad Lieutenant, arresting cinema.
Never seen any of his films.
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McCain/Palin '08
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Zaz
Title: Manager:
The Amphitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
8/28/07 7:57pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - #100 Abel Ferrara
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Me, either. 
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General_Dodonna
Registered:
Feb '05
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Date Posted:
8/29/07 2:16pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - #100 Abel Ferrara
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Ferrara is famous for several things:
- Bad Lieutenant: This film catapulted Ferrara's career but he still never quite received the recognition that he deserved as the foremost purveyor of underground shock cinema. Still widely regarded as his masterpiece, Bad Lieutenant is an absolutely unflinching portrait of sin, guilt, and forgiveness.
- Distribution (or lack thereof): Both of Ferrara's last two films, Mary (with Juliet Binoche and Forrest Whitaker) was deemed too controversial and unmarketable for American audiences, while his latest, Go-Go Tales (a screwball comedy about a go-go club run by Willem Dafoe!) still has yet to find a distributor. Whether it ever will is a good question.
- Exploitation and shock: Most of Ferrara's early career was spent making cheap-o horror movies like the classic Driller Killer. The title is pretty self-explanatory.
By the way, this list is pretty terrible. I can't believe some of the omissions and the rankings are utterly laughable (seriously, Mizoguchi in the 70s!?). That said, it should prove fertile ground for some interesting discussion so this isn't to knock the idea behind the thread.
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"A film is difficult to explain because it is easy to understand." - Christian Metz
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Zaz
Title: Manager:
The Amphitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
8/29/07 2:50pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - #100 Abel Ferrara
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All the lists are pretty terrible. That's what's fun about them...
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severian28
Registered:
Apr '04
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Date Posted:
8/29/07 6:13pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - #100 Abel Ferrara
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Im from the same neighborhood as Abel Ferrara and some people think he's just a Scorsese rip-off and thats not the case at all. Scorcese slightly (and on purpose) glorifies the look of N.Y.C., even its alleys and tenaments. He is to N.Y.C. what Norman Rockwell is to a New England farmhouse. If you wanna get a real idea of just how sleazy those alleys were in the seventies and eighties ( and just about everything else around here in that time ) watch the Ferrara films.
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" Bring the sled " - Al Swearengen
" Dying all the time. Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind. Aint life unkind? " - The Rolling Stones
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Jango10
Registered:
Sep '02
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Date Posted:
8/29/07 6:18pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - #100 Abel Ferrara
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#99. Sofia Coppola
The dreamer
Rubbish as an actress, eloquent as a filmmaker, Francis’ little angel has taken just three films to fashion her graceful movie chic. If Sofia was adored for The Virgin Suicides (adolescent death eulogy) and Lost In Translation (suitcase gloom sheen), it was the Cannes-booed Marie Antoinette that separated the fickle from the fans. Wilfully vacuous and beautiful, it summed up the cheek of the young superstar: “I guess it was a bit audacious to show first in France!” Dreamy, brave and cool, this Coppola is doing it for herself.
Picture perfect Lost In Translation. Mesmerising misery.
I heard Lost In Translation was pretty good, but I would see it on account of Bill Murray, not Sofia Coppola.
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"I love the smell of Napalm in the morning."
McCain/Palin '08
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General_Dodonna
Registered:
Feb '05
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Date Posted:
8/30/07 7:07am
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - #100 Abel Ferrara
- Date Edited:
8/30/07 7:08am (1 edits total)
Edited By:
General_Dodonna
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Here's a question: When compiling a list of 100 great directors, given an unlimited pool of talent, male and female, to choose from, these guys select one woman, and that woman is Sofia Coppola? What about: Jane Campion, Sally Potter, Agnes Varda, Lina Wertmuller, Leni Riefenstahl, Ida Lupino?
I have no big problems with Sofia Coppola, but she has made three films, some of which show talent, none of which are exceptionally great, all of which are hardly a barometer of talent worthy of inclusion on a list of great directors. Again, so many great female directors to choose from and they choose Sofia Coppola.
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Rogue1-and-a-half
Title: Manager: Amphitheatre
Registered:
Nov '00
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Date Posted:
9/3/07 8:47pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - #100 Abel Ferrara
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I've been meaning to see Bad Lieutenent for about a year now, but I'm always just a little afraid to go ahead and watch it.
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Zaz
Title: Manager:
The Amphitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
9/3/07 9:41pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - #99 Sofia Coppola
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Sofia may be a good director in time, but this is very premature.
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Drew_Atreides
Registered:
Apr '02
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Date Posted:
9/4/07 5:24am
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - #99 Sofia Coppola
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"Lost in Translation" was a great film, but i have to agree that it's a little early to be listing her as one of the best directors ever.
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Zaz
Title: Manager:
The Amphitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
9/4/07 7:50am
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - #99 Sofia Coppola
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Great films are not necessarily made by great directors.
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KissMeImARebel
Registered:
Nov '03
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Date Posted:
9/4/07 8:16am
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - #99 Sofia Coppola
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I agree with Zaz: this seems premature.
But I do think that she has talent. Marie Antoinette got middling reviews (and deservedly so for certain aspects), but I thought the directing was great: she was able to capture so much without dialogue.
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RebelMollom of The Kind
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Jango10
Registered:
Sep '02
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Date Posted:
9/5/07 7:53pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - #99 Sofia Coppola
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98. John Sturges
The man’s man
An apprenticeship directing training films for the US Army Air Corps during WWII stood ‘Captain’ John Sturges in good stead for his later career as bluff helmer of big-budget, male-oriented actioners. Before The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape, though, he’d already landed a Best Director Oscar nod for Bad Day At Black Rock and directed the definitive Wyatt Earp pic, Gunfight At The OK Corral. Ed Zwick correctly identifies him as “a wonderful storyteller who was quite humble in not putting himself in front of the story…”
Picture perfect The gun-blazing The Magnificent Seven.
Magnificent Seven is a great film, as is Gunfight at the OK Corral.
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"I love the smell of Napalm in the morning."
McCain/Palin '08
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Zaz
Title: Manager:
The Amphitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
9/5/07 10:02pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - #98 John Sturges
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Also: "Escape From Fort Bravo" and "Last Train From Gun Hill", which I saw just recently on TCM. Excellent with action, and a terrific ability to compose on the wide screen: you have to see the films in the proper format, or you lose the whole point.
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JohnWesleyDowney
Registered:
Jan '04
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Date Posted:
9/6/07 12:09am
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - #98 John Sturges
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Spielberg has spoken publicly about his admiration for Sturges.
Regards him as a great director.
My personal favorite of Sturge's is THE GREAT ESCAPE.
So many characters, yet I felt like I got to know them all.
That's no small trick. And I cared about them in the midst
of the action and suspense. Very balanced film.
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General_Dodonna
Registered:
Feb '05
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Date Posted:
9/6/07 9:53am
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - #98 John Sturges
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Sturges was a fine genre director (Bad Day at Black Rock is great), but to include Sturges and leave out perhaps the greatest of all genre directors, Jacques Tourneur, is simply anathema.
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