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Topic:
Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever: 38. Roman Polanski
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Erk
Registered:
Aug '01
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Date Posted:
11/30/07 2:13am
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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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. "
Yeah, yeah, still comparing 20s and 30s directors with 70s ones is silly especially when we already has concluded that this is not the most truthfull of lists.
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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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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
11/30/07 9:41am
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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No problem at all comparing 20's and 30's directors with later ones, IMO.
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Rogue1-and-a-half
Title: Manager: Amphitheatre
Registered:
Nov '00
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Date Posted:
11/30/07 11:42am
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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Personally, I think Ronin was a creative rebirth for Frankenheimer. Recaptures the genius, however briefly.
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KissMeImARebel
Registered:
Nov '03
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Date Posted:
11/30/07 11:46am
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.
Agreed. IMO the strength was in the screenwriting, and the acting.
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RebelMollom of The Kind
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Palpateen
Registered:
Apr '00
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Date Posted:
12/3/07 10:47pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
- Date Edited:
12/3/07 10:49pm (3 edits total)
Edited By:
Palpateen
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KissMeImARebel posted:
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.
Agreed. IMO the strength was in the screenwriting, and the acting.
 Directing is an invisible job! If you're conscious of the directing, it's not working. I get bewildered when I see people see "I enjoyed watching the direction." Huh?
The direction IS the film. You can't know what went on on the set, how it all blended together - everyone's individual contributions, but the director's job is in effect to orchestrate all the other elements of the film so it fuses into a whole. If you say the script and the acting were the strengths, you're negating the work the director did with supervising the script and guiding the actors.
I know of what I speak. Read William Goldman's book ADVENTURES IN THE SCREEN TRADE. Goldman wrote the script for ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN and in his book he has a lot to say about Pakula as a director. It's all positive. And that's from a screenwriter who often loathes directors.
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General_Dodonna
Registered:
Feb '05
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Date Posted:
12/4/07 7:03am
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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If one goes to the movies purely for entertainment, the telling of a tale well-told, your vision of a director is completely understood. It's also why Hollywood loves guys like Pakula (and today cats like Ratner and Chris Columbus).
In contrast, I go to the movies for art (of wildly diverging kinds). A great director brings a wildness, an energy, and a visual verve to a material that is otherwise lifeless and dull on paper. Great directors can take whacky stories (VERTIGO), maudlin scripts (DUEL IN THE SUN), and bland acting (KISS ME DEADLY) and turn the result into something utterly extraordinary. I want to watch a film without a potent visual style about as much as I want to read a novel without the author's distinctive voice.
Of course Goldman liked Pakula. Pakula played it safe, never dared questioned Goldman's authority, and made a faithful adaptation of his script. Screenwriters love that.
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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:
12/4/07 9:28am
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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I don't agree with the General very often, but I will say a hearty amen/hallellujah to these sentiments...
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Rogue1-and-a-half
Title: Manager: Amphitheatre
Registered:
Nov '00
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Date Posted:
12/4/07 11:05am
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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Yes, so do I. There's certainly a place for restraint in direction, but there's also a place for a very definite perspective from the director.
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A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
Without having ever felt sorry for itself.
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Erk
Registered:
Aug '01
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Date Posted:
12/5/07 3:30am
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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Me too except no Hitchcook was ever art.
Who's next? I sure hope for McTiernan or Cosmatos.
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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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KissMeImARebel
Registered:
Nov '03
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Date Posted:
12/6/07 12:32pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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The point about restraint is really good. And it did work in AtPM.
I guess I just feel that if your one really great flick is one where you sat back, you haven't really earned a place on a top 100 list. I need more than that.
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RebelMollom of The Kind
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Jango10
Registered:
Sep '02
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Date Posted:
12/6/07 2:01pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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92. Paul Verhoeven
The flying dutchman
“Of course there are nude scenes… I’m Dutch!” Verhoeven’s always had a nose for the box office, pulling in punters with lashings of sex and ultraviolence. It’s a basic instinct summed up in that Sharon Stone crotch shot. Even his early Dutch work was more grindhouse than arthouse: see the bold eroticism of Turkish Delight or Spetters. When Hollywood beckoned, Verhoeven impressed with ironic/iconic sci-fi(Robocop, Starship Troopers) until success bred excess (Showgirls). Returning home triggered a comeback in Black Book’s pulp blend of Nazis, sex and dyed fannies. Well, he is Dutch…
Picture perfect RoboCop, future shock.
My favorite of his is definitely Starship Troopers. Not only is it a great sci-fi action war film, but I love the satire as well. I've always wanted to get around to reading the book also.
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McCain/Palin '08
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Erk
Registered:
Aug '01
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Date Posted:
12/7/07 12:29am
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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Only seen Robocop and Starship Troopers.
Both alrigth action films with a pinch of satire.
I will never forget the chickenwalker or Robocop eating those baby meals.
Verhoeven gets a two out of five.
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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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StarDude
Registered:
Nov '01
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Date Posted:
12/7/07 1:09am
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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Erk posted:
Me too except no Hitchcook was ever art.
Vertigo is certainly art in every sense.
Just because Hitchcock was about entertaining an audience, doesn't mean he didn't have an artist's sensibilities. He know how to craft a story, but he also knew how to make it literary. Vertigo, for example, has so many subtleties going on in everything from the performances, to the story, to the score.
On that note, I'll chime in with how I judge a director's accomplishment.
A director's job is tone-control, which is a broad statement. What I mean by tone is everything--the story structure, the casting, the performances, the cinematography, the pacing, the atmosphere, the music, etc. When a movie is tone-consistent, which is incredibly rare (The Godfather and Citizen Kane come to mind), that's perfect direction.
I've always thought All the President's Men was a well-directed movie.
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JohnWesleyDowney
Registered:
Jan '04
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Date Posted:
12/7/07 1:24am
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 93. Alan J. Pakula
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StarDude posted:
Erk posted:
Me too except no Hitchcook was ever art.
Vertigo is certainly art in every sense.
Just because Hitchcock was about entertaining an audience, doesn't mean he didn't have an artist's sensibilities. He know how to craft a story, but he also knew how to make it literary. Vertigo, for example, has so many subtleties going on in everything from the performances, to the story, to the score.
On that note, I'll chime in with how I judge a director's accomplishment.
A director's job is tone-control, which is a broad statement. What I mean by tone is everything--the story structure, the casting, the performances, the cinematography, the pacing, the atmosphere, the music, etc. When a movie is tone-consistent, which is incredibly rare (The Godfather and Citizen Kane come to mind), that's perfect direction.
I've always thought All the President's Men was a well-directed movie.
I agree, tone is a huge part of a director's job. I think the acclaim Burton is getting for Sweeney Todd is largely because he got the tone right, and on that particular piece, it was a challenge to translate an operatic Broadway show to the film screen. I think Schindler's List is a movie with perfect tone control. So is Dr. Strangelove.
Unfortunately, some directors are "tone deaf", 
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How many movies do you think Industrial Light and Magic has worked on? WRONG. http://www.ilm.com/ilm_services.html "Films fulfill an unconscious spiritual desire that human beings have to share a common memory." - Martin Scorcese
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
12/7/07 12:43pm
Subject:
RE: Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever - 92. Paul Verhoeven
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As for Verhoeven--I haven't seen either "Soldier of Orange" or "Black Book", both of which sound very interesting.
But he also directed "Showgirls"
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