Best Director Ever? Give Me A Break!
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shadgrindk — 16 years ago(July 23, 2009 09:14 PM)
If there was only one man in the history of cinema directors who deserves the attached title of 'GENIUS' to his name and reputation, it's Welles.
He truly invented a number of cinematic elements first used in Citizen Kane and other films of his, and Othello has the ultimate combination of cinematography, editing, music, set design and the union of all elements into a medievil Shakespearean masterpiece. There were many other films that add to his reputation. He's not necessarily the greatest, but he was the most innovative of all filmmakers. -
eduardoyoung21 — 16 years ago(September 24, 2009 10:47 PM)
As far as i know he's the greatest director. Just watch his film noirs (the stranger, lady from shanghai, mr arkadin and touch of evil) and his shakespeare adaptations (macbeth, othello and chimes at midnight) and you'll see what i'm talking about. Hell, even the trial is great in its own strange way.
"The only way to stay out of trouble is to grow old, so I guess I'll concentrate on that". -
CULTEGUY — 16 years ago(October 08, 2009 03:44 PM)
Such a subjective topic that these 238so-called-experts are no more than you or me. People forget that Kubrick only made a hand full of films. Most were great, some were good, and some weren't all that good at all (two of which I've never seen.)
Eastwood (whom Welles gave props to early on in his directing field) has probably been more successful as an actor-turned-director than anyone. For me, John Cassavetes should take credit as the best, but many would disagree and that's fine. But, I'm not sure a lot of people would disagree that Welles was the first actor-turned-director, and the ear5b4liest in his career, to turn out one of the best movies ever made.
It probably should have gone to Hitchcock, as you were saying. Very seldom did the Hitch stray from a particular genre. I mean, as much as I like all the directors' films you'd mentioned, Hitch was always trying something without switching, and killed most of the time. "Psycho" still kills me. People don't mention it created the 'slasher' genre, but the shower scene was by definition what the genre means.
The opening of "Touch Of Evil" still makes Welles dang good though. Even in that, the 'one shot' method had been done by Hitchcock, but it'd never been incorperated until then. Plus, I dig Marlene Dietrich in that film. -
baprice14 — 16 years ago(November 21, 2009 06:28 PM)
I love Welles and Hitchcock (though I seldom like the end of any of Hitchcock's films). I can't understand why anyone wouldn't at least consider Welles in the top 5. Love Kubrick too. But honestly, if a "best director ever" tag is going to be awarded, it would probably have to go to a foreign director. Bergman, Bresson, Antonioni, Fellini, Kurosawa, Fassbinder, Herzog, Renoir, etc. Especially if there is some requirement to have not only good films, but lots of them (in which case my vote would go to Bergman).
And though they might not have been around early enough to invent the "cinematic vocabulary," my vote goes to the Coen brothers. If you can exclude The Ladykillers, everyone of their films has been very good at the least, and many of them (Barton Fink, Miller's Crossing, Raising Arizona, Fargo, No Country for old Men, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Though) have been phenomenal.
Tendrils of Obfuscation -
classicfilmfan81 — 16 years ago(November 22, 2009 09:26 PM)
I believe what Orson Welles said in his book interview with Peter Bogdanovich rings true and that is to be considered good one does not need to make many films, but can only make one great film. He didn't only make one great film, movies like Lady from Shanghai and Touch of Evil were superb, but Citizen Kane stood above everything. Kane was Orson's great film and I believe that is why many consider him a great director.
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JohnWelles — 16 years ago(December 09, 2009 05:39 AM)
It's a hard one Some people say Welles just because of "Citizen Kane" (I used to), and Kane is my favorite film, but when you say he is the greatest, you suddenly remember people like Huston, Hitchcock, Kubrick, Lang, Hawks, Lean, Bergman It's difficult, because unlike a film, what criteria do you base your judgement on? Do you go for exceptional quality (Welles, Lean, Kubrick) from people who made few films or directors who made lots of
excellent
movies (Hawks, Hitchcock, Huston)? In the end, I think you should just list your ten favorites in no order because if you list one person as number oe, aren't you snuffing other great directors who are possibly on a par? -
teamgomez99 — 15 years ago(November 14, 2010 09:42 AM)
This is stupidly subjective and just filled with other morons like me shouting Directors names. I agree with the one dude above me, BEST OF ALL TIME would be a foreign director like Bergman, Kurosawa, Herzog etc (YES HERZOG!!!), not Godard, for anyone who actually studies films and doesn't just name drop knows his influence is extremely greater than his work for the most part. Out of American directors, Orson Welles is one of the greatest. And Kubrick IS OVER RATED. Everyone is too b68quick to shout "Masterpeice!" My favorite film by him is actually Lolita, which is never mentioned, because it lacks ridiculous, extreme David Lynch ish camer work!!! (I do like Lynch, usually). His later films became incredibly indulgent and dare I say, but Kubrick is pretentious, and b4 you say he isn't, look up the definition for PRETENTIOUS. However, this tread is on Welles. If you say "He isn't the best because he only made blah blah blah" then you shouldn't be saying anything, because I have seen 6 or 7 Welles films and everyone was absolutely amazing. Don't get me going on Scorsese. He isn't even the best of the New Hollywood. Coppola blantantly made better pictures early on, and he never became a true auteur like Depalma (I love mostly everything by DePalma until 1996 and after, all that beep is beep Scorsese is very mainstream, and puts no where near the amount of perfection, ambition, and general uniqueness that Orson Welles did. So if you disagree with me, go back to film school, u hobo!
H.W. -
Matti-Man — 16 years ago(December 29, 2009 09:27 AM)
Yet if you were to ask Orson Welles, he'd say that the greatest film director of all is Jean Renoir. My friend Steve thinks it's Kurosawa and I'm not able to choose who's the greatest.
The point is the greatest director of all will be someone different depending on who you ask. I don't think it's likely that we'll find a candidate on whom we all agree
Nice try, though.
Mattiman
"It's only a movie, dear!" Alfred Hitchcock. -
JohnWelles — 16 years ago(January 01, 2010 06:14 AM)
Interresting views you have TheIntellectualEveryman, and I must say, that I haven't seen a film made by Yasujiro Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Werner Herzog, Theo Angelopoulos, Bla Tarr and Michelangelo Antonioni yet. But anyhow, on your views regaurding Hitchcock. A film like
Vertigo
is amonge the most haunting movies I've ever seen and, is arguably, a better film than, say Welle's
The Stranger
or
The Lady from Shanghai
. I found it a very moving film, and a movie that I still watch every year. I can't say that about a director like Kurosawa, a director who I find rather too cold with his films. I may only watch a film like
Kagemusha
once every three years. A great director he probably is, but I wouldn't put him in my top ten.
You are right about Wilder and Ford and Hawks. They were excellent American directors, but they worked within the studio system, so while they made entertaining movies, they aren't as thought provoking or meaningful as, say, Welles or Kubrick or Lang or (if you stretch the point) Lean.
Spielberg, while he has made his fair share of bad movie, his best,
Jaws, Close Encounters of a Third Kind, E. T.
(reaching into the inner child in us all is a harder thing to do, and this movie still touches me, but not in the same way, as
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
did for example) and
Duel
(his best film) are on a par with Eisenstein and Pontecorvo I think.
Kubrick, while an excellent director, didn't have the same warmenth and humanity that Welles had. On another IMDb board, there is a list of my favorite film directors, but a greatest list would look something like this:- Orson Welles (American)
- Fritz Lang (German)
- Stanley Kubrick (British)
- Andrei Tarkovsky (Russian)
- Alfred Hithcock (British)/Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (British)
The Third Man
, by the way, I think is Carol Reed's film. Welles cameo (because that was what it was) might have stole the movie, but from reading a "Making of" book about the film, I'm pretty confidant that Welles major contribution was his two big speeches.
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JohnWelles — 16 years ago(January 02, 2010 05:03 AM)
I'm not going to comment on your opinions on Hitchcock and Spielberg, because this conversation could descend into a argument. Surfice to say. I thought that the leads in
Vertigo
did the best work they ever did, so I can overlook some of the supporting cast, TheIntellectualEveryman.
Kagemusha
while it does have the virtues you say it does, you are right that it goes on for far too long, and I found the photography rather uninteresting. But, if you look closely at Kurosawa, despite his last few movies, specalised in samurai films, and there is nothing wrong in that. Like Hitchcock, they both took a theme and constantly re-did it, always putting a slightly differant spin to things each time. I think Welles and Kubrick are better filmmakers simply because they choose a differant subject each time, thus meaning they were much more versitial than other directors like Hitchcock or Kurosawa.
Don't get me wrong, I think Kubrick is a great director, probably just behind Welles as the best ever, but, like you said, he delt with negitive emotions, so his movies are rather hard to like, especialy a film like
Dr. Strangle, or; How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
, that is so very, very bleak, especialy the ending, that while he is undoubtably a brilliant director, I find it harder to enjoy his movies than Welles.
According to the book
In Search of the The Third Man: The Making of
by Charles Drazin, Welles did only
eight
days of shooting. Not much time to "ghost-direct" the movie? I think that Greene, who was always at Reed's side influance him more than Welles.