Who do you think is the best director of all time?

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

No love for Scorsese?

Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas are all great movies, but none of them are at the very top for me. I do love Scorsese, though. I rewatched The Wolf of Wall Street yesterday, which is pretty entertaining.

Its gonna be heretical for me to say this, but I did not like Taxi Driver.

My issues with it is that its very boring to watch in the beginning and has a very repetitive music track.

But than again the movie went through Production Troubles.

One movie I have yet to see is Mean Streets.

I just remember rolling my eyes at the ending. The guy busted into a building, shot a bunch of people, and the police just let him go? He isn't Batman, what happened there?

Well he was dead anyway, I am surprised how he lasted a Shot to the neck.

 

[Marter]

Roel Reine, obviously, because anyone who could create The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption is beyond reproach.

 

[Chanticoblues]

Jean Renoir probably, but the list of directors I love is pretty long.

 

[Smithnikov_v1legacy]

I'm a little nervous to dare to make a claim of who the BEST director is.

I will say my FAVORITE director though is John Carpenter (though I'll admit he only shines when he has a certain list of people backing him up, ie: Debra Hill).

 

[09philj]

I can't say who the best is, but the Cohen Brothers are definitely my favourite. I love the way they can be both tense and comic, thoroughly nasty and completely good-hearted.

 

[Hawki]

Spielberg would probably be my favorite, but I can't really say who the "best" is, since I'm hardly a film student, and I rarely decide to see films based on who directed them, but more because of their content and/or genre.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

Is picking up two cheating? Because i have to bring up Ethan and Joel Coens into this thread.

And yes, when it comes to 'favorite' directors that are not necessiraly considered as THE maestros of directing, i gotta have to mention good ol' Quentin there.

 

[Mr.Mattress]

Knowing very few Directors, I'm going to pick Ron Clements and John Musker: The Director Duo that brought us Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, The Great Mouse Detective, Hercules, Treasure Planet, The Princess and the Frog and most recently Moana.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Thread's filled with fine picks. Might as well throw in Werner Herzog to the pile.

No love for Scorsese?

I was joking yesterday that I am going to skip Silence because it doesn't feature Italian-Americans in the mob or other people involved in stealing and killing.

Not gonna be my favorite because of its message. Christian Martyrdom.

Even though they are Martyred themselves in a place that really wants nothing to do with Christianity and does not want it to supplant thier own culture.

The Japanese knew better than martyring priests; they instead tortured them to the point of apostatizing (renouncing their faith). Killing them only gave their faith more power, "persuading" them on the other hand undermined their teachings.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Thread's filled with fine picks. Might as well throw in Werner Herzog to the pile.

No love for Scorsese?

I was joking yesterday that I am going to skip Silence because it doesn't feature Italian-Americans in the mob or other people involved in stealing and killing.

Not gonna be my favorite because of its message. Christian Martyrdom.

Even though they are Martyred themselves in a place that really wants nothing to do with Christianity and does not want it to supplant thier own culture.

The Japanese knew better than martyring priests; they instead tortured them to the point of apostatizing (renouncing their faith). Killing them only gave their faith more power, "persuading" them on the other hand undermined their teachings.

Because again the Natives clearly don't want a foreign faith disrupting their Culture, Power Structure, and Way of Life.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Well he was dead anyway, I am surprised how he lasted a Shot to the neck.

It's a shame the redder version is lost. Scorsese had to darken the blood for the censors.

What do you think of the works of Paul Thomas Anderson:

 

[09philj]

Thread's filled with fine picks. Might as well throw in Werner Herzog to the pile.

I want to see a cut of Eat, Pray, Love where Werner Herzog tells Julia Roberts that there is only darkness and chaos.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Thread's filled with fine picks. Might as well throw in Werner Herzog to the pile.

No love for Scorsese?

I was joking yesterday that I am going to skip Silence because it doesn't feature Italian-Americans in the mob or other people involved in stealing and killing.

Not gonna be my favorite because of its message. Christian Martyrdom.

Even though they are Martyred themselves in a place that really wants nothing to do with Christianity and does not want it to supplant thier own culture.

The Japanese knew better than martyring priests; they instead tortured them to the point of apostatizing (renouncing their faith). Killing them only gave their faith more power, "persuading" them on the other hand undermined their teachings.

Because again the Natives clearly don't want a foreign faith disrupting their Culture, Power Structure, and Way of Life.

But they did, especially in and around Nagasaki and after the Shimabara Rebellion. The whole start of Japan's isolationist policies ca. early 1600s was because the shogun got paranoid about the increasing popularity of Christian teachings among the peasants (as well as Dutch tradesmen slandering the Spanish/Portuguese). The thing is peasants interpreted Christian missionaries and their teachings in ways that the missionaries did not foresee or intend to. Even when "successful", Christianity evolved/degenerated into its own thing in Japan.

I'm not an expert on the matter, I just finished reading Shusaku Endo's novel (basis for the film) and that much he makes clear.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Lot of fine choices here, so I'll throw a more mainstream entry in: James Cameron.

I know, the guy that made Titanic and Avatar? What are you smoking you silly engine? Well, I realised that basically every movie James Cameron has ever made is eminently watchable. Not all are transcendent classics like Raging Bull or Platoon but everything is solid across the board. His peak output is probably The Terminator series, Aliens and Titanic but True Lies, the Abyss, and Avatar are all totally watchable, fun movies.

Note, this does not excuse his shitty personal behaviour: seriously he nearly killed Ed Harris, his falling out with wife Linda Hamilton is a matter of public record and in a bout of beautiful poetic justice, she held onto the rights to the Terminator franchise for a long while. He's mellowed as he's aged, but he's still a bit of a knob. Mind you, if you could work for him you could probably work for anyone.

 

[Hawki]

Knowing very few Directors, I'm going to pick Ron Clements and John Musker: The Director Duo that brought us Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, The Great Mouse Detective, Hercules, Treasure Planet, The Princess and the Frog and most recently Moana.

Even they were forced to adopt CG? I'm sad now. Fuck you, Disney.

Because as we all know, the measure of a film's quality is how it's animated.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Knowing very few Directors, I'm going to pick Ron Clements and John Musker: The Director Duo that brought us Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, The Great Mouse Detective, Hercules, Treasure Planet, The Princess and the Frog and most recently Moana.

Even they were forced to adopt CG? I'm sad now. Fuck you, Disney.

You would prefer they're not creating anything at all and instead turned their noses up at new opportunities due to a misguided act of snobbery in protest against 3D animation? If Disney had steadfastly refused to accept the 3D animation stage, then Pixar might have been owned by Universal, or hell, stood on their own and become such a powerhouse that discussions of Disney Animation past 2004 may have all been in past tense and the closing entry to their legacy could have been the abysmal 'Home on the Range'. Think about that next time you decide to slag off Pixar for saving Disney from themselves.