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Topic:
Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever: 38. Roman Polanski
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
11/28/07 3:00pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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Haven't seen "The Parallex View" but "Klute" and "ATPM" are meh, frankly.
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General_Dodonna
Registered:
Feb '05
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Date Posted:
11/28/07 3:40pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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Alan J. Pakula, eh? This warrants another round of: F.W. Murnau is not on this list. 
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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 Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
11/28/07 3:44pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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Nor Minnelli.
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General_Dodonna
Registered:
Feb '05
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Date Posted:
11/28/07 9:25pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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Nor a lot of great filmmakers. That said, Pakula really does warrant these comments. I actually have things to say about some of the choices, even those I don't agree with. But Pakula? C'mon. Seriously?
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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 Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
11/28/07 9:37pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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I may have asked this before: Is Dreyer on the list?
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Erk
Registered:
Aug '01
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Date Posted:
11/29/07 2:55am
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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All the President's Men and Presumed Innocent are good films.
Putting him on this list is not crazier than putting Baz Luhrmann or M Night Shyamalan here.
It also seems everybody in here is drooling over a chance to brag about their exquisit taste in film so let's make that JCs list of the g directors ever, zaz.
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"One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place." Mick Travis, If.... Blast. They've removed my icon.  U S A ! U S A ! U S A !
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General_Dodonna
Registered:
Feb '05
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Date Posted:
11/29/07 8:28am
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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"I may have asked this before: Is Dreyer on the list?"
I think so, yes.
"Putting him on this list is not crazier than putting Baz Luhrmann or M Night Shyamalan here."
I wouldn't disagree with that. That said, neither belong on the list...but, at least they're in the nineties, so no harm done. Just wait until you see their top ten... 
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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 Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
11/29/07 8:52am
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
- Date Edited:
11/29/07 9:30am (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Zaz
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We're not talking about exquisite taste here; we're talking about really obvious candidates for the list, in other words, basic taste.
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Rogue1-and-a-half
Title: Manager: Amphitheatre
Registered:
Nov '00
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Date Posted:
11/29/07 12:20pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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Funny thing is, much as I liked All the President's Men, I didn't exactly think it had great direction.
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I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.
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Without having ever felt sorry for itself.
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
11/29/07 12:25pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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Trying to make this guy out as an auteur is ze joke. He's a journeyman. This is not a disgrace. It's just a fact. He's a Frankenheimer.
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General_Dodonna
Registered:
Feb '05
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Date Posted:
11/29/07 3:39pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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"Trying to make this guy out as an auteur is ze joke. He's a journeyman. This is not a disgrace. It's just a fact. He's a Frankenheimer."
Well, you could make a case that between 1961 and 1973 Frankenheimer was an auteur; a man who clearly dictated the style and visuals of his films (you can't tell me the man had no style, and while THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE gets all the credit, SECONDS is an utter masterpiece, and THE TRAIN ain't no slouch of a film either). Comparing Pakula to Frankenheimer is an insult to the immense talents of the latter, at least in my opinion. It's a shame that after 1973 the man was a pale shadow of his former self (the kinds of projects he was given are demonstrative of that though...one could say he was dealt a bad hand by the studios).
"Funny thing is, much as I liked All the President's Men, I didn't exactly think it had great direction."
That reminds me very much of my feelings about GLENGARRY, GLENN, ROSS. A cracker of a script with some great performances and an interesting story, but I'll be damned if that direction ain't some of the most workmanlike, boring stuff I've ever seen. No surprise that he's the same dude who directed this year's bomb PERFECT STRANGER (or whatever the hell that movie was called).
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
11/29/07 4:06pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
- Date Edited:
11/29/07 4:24pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Zaz
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There are times that a journeyman director can make a great movie. Frankenheimer and "The Manchurian Candidate" is an example. Robert Wise and "The Haunting" are held to be another (I am not a great fan of horror movies). It's usually in the script; or the cast; or lightning strikes.
It's also noticeable that some directors only seem to have a few movies in them, just as some authors only have a few books, while others are hugely prolific. This seems to have little to do with talent; given the nature of the beast, director is a back-breaking job these days. Pakula seems to me to be a director of the type where the movie looks untouched by human hands (ie. bland)--the interest is in the story or the performances.
NOTE: the director you mentioned is James Foley
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General_Dodonna
Registered:
Feb '05
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Date Posted:
11/29/07 8:34pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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"There are times that a journeyman director can make a great movie. Frankenheimer and "The Manchurian Candidate" is an example. Robert Wise and "The Haunting" are held to be another (I am not a great fan of horror movies). It's usually in the script; or the cast; or lightning strikes."
Again, I just respectfully disagree with the term "journeyman director" as you apply it to Frankenheimer. Until the mid 70s, the guy was absolutely NOT a journeyman by any stretch. He doesn't belong in the same breath as folks like say, Allan Dwan or Henry Hathaway (altough Hathaway made a trio of great noir titles in the mid and late 40s). He had a very clear visual style that, when it accompanied material appropriate to it, created an absolute tour-de-force of cinematic expression. I don't know if you've seen SECONDS but if you haven't, you should. It may be the most staunchly existentialist film to ever come out of Hollywood. And it's scary, really, really scary. It's also much better than THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (which I like and which has more going on in it than good performances and a good script). Oddly, the end came for Frankenheimer shortly after he made the televised adaptation of THE ICEMAN COMETH (with Lee Marvin). This isn't to say he never made bad films before this (he made some clunkers for sure), but he never again got the kind of material that proved so inspirational to him and his style.
Wise is an interesting case. His visual style in some of his pictures was definitely not boring or even workmanlike. However, he definitely could (and should to a degree) be considered a journeyman. I think he's a much better example of what you're looking for, but even I'd slot him far, far ahead of a guy like Pakula (and Pakula never made movies like THE SET-UP, CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE, or THE HAUNTING).
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"A film is difficult to explain because it is easy to understand." - Christian Metz
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KnightWriter
Title:
Administrator Emeritus
Registered:
Nov '01
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Date Posted:
11/29/07 8:58pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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Rogue1-and-a-half posted:
Funny thing is, much as I liked All the President's Men, I didn't exactly think it had great direction.
Have you seen the special features/interviews on the new 2-disc version of ATPM? All the main people involved loved Pakula, and it seemed to be very much a collaborative effort. I think he sort of ran the show while letting the others have a lot of input.
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
11/29/07 9:12pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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Altman and Allen are directors like that, too. Which means actors want to work with them, because they will be indulged, not necessarily in the right way.
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