Total Film's 100 Greatest Directors Ever: 1. Alfred Hitchcock

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.

 

Me, either.

 

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.

 

All the lists are pretty terrible. That's what's fun about them...

 

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.

 

#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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

Sofia may be a good director in time, but this is very premature.

 

"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.

 

Great films are not necessarily made by great directors.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

Sofia Coppola (and Tarantino) I think are the only american directors still alive who's really interesting today.

I've only seen sturges great escape and magnificent seven. Both good adventure movies but nothing more.

 

97. Baz Luhrmann

The showman

Who?d have known that the kitsch-lover behind Strictly Ballroom could deliver a cinematic statement of intent as radical as Romeo + Juliet, mixing Shakespeare with helicopters and handguns? The flamboyant former actor followed up with twirling, lavish pop musical Moulin Rouge!. A perfectionist (?All the films I make are about 60 per cent of what I imagine them to be?) wise to the power of adding theatrical zing to celluloid dreams, he?s about to go epic with period romance Australia. Expect anything but the ordinary.

Picture perfect Moulin Rouge! If music be the food of love?

I didn't like Romeo + Juliet, and I haven't seen Moulin Rouge.

 

I love Baz Luhrman.

The Red Curtain trilogy is simply a masterpiece. It's essentially the same story told through 3 different mediums (dance, poetry, and music). The openings are frenetic and designed to get your adreniline going. They all calm down after boy and girl meet, but you are still so hyped after the roller coaster, the rest of the movies feel magical.

 

What did you expect? It's IMDB.

 

His new film, "Australia" is due out in 2008, seven years after his last, "Moulin Rouge". Big gap.

I've only seen "Moulin Rouge", which was a curate's egg of a movie; some great things and some things that just don't work. The ultra-kinetic style *did* work, at least for awhile.

 

I already have a gripe with this list with Luhrmann ranking better than Sturges. Good director, no doubt, but premature much?

 

I dont know why, but I sort of expected Luhrmann to be in 50's. Moulin Rouge and Romeo and Juliet are two movies that I can watch over and over again.

 

I've seen Baz's movies, and while I'm not fond of his style or his films,
I like the fact that he takes risks and pushes the envelope. Very creative
guy and while he's not my cup of tea, at least the guy is interesting.

 

IMDB did not make this list.

Re: Luhrmann

Where is Hollywood's supreme color stylist and musical director, Vincente Minelli? Oh, not on this list? Next.