Which great director is not-so-great?

Hitchock's films have always seemed soulless to me. Sure, they're full of impressive techniques and editing, but how far does that really go? His films never move me or inspire me. I admire them, but I don't love them. To me, a great director makes films I can be passionate about. Hitchock made exercises in technique. He's absolutely influential, but he also owes much of what he did to experimental filmmakers who don't get the credit they deserve. Also, I think the acting in Hitchcock films is absolutely horrible. Jimmy Stewart is terribly unconvincing. Hitchcock just never struck me as anything special.

Kubrick, almost without doubt. He was a great photographer, he knew his composition for static images - which is why all of the stills from his movies work brilliantly. Unfortunately he never came off static images, movement, motion and emotion never where his.

Probably he wanted that to be so but to watch through over 2 hours of nice photos is simply boring. Since this stasis translates back into characters [well, if you can count the nomoticons of his films this], plot and development - without movement no development - most of his movies for most of their running time aren't very good.

Do I care about any of the figures in Clockwork Orange, 2001, Dr. Strangelove, Full Metal Jacket, or even Paths of Glory? No, and why should I, they aren't characters, they are cyphers for some nihilist-existentialist philospohy*.

In conclusion: Nice images and undecipherable nonsense dialogue do not make great movies - much less good ones.

*Don't get me wrong, I mean nihilist in the good sense, the academic, not the denigrating one neoconservatives and socialist made it.

They're all great, even in the most contrairian of moods, I cannot deride any of them, even Antonioni because for every Zabriskie Point you get a L'Avventura. (By the way Antonioni and Godard are the only ones still kicking. It seems anger and curgmudgery is a lengthener of life.)

Jim,

First of all, THIS is the best polling software that you've used so far, in my opinion. It's clean, it works, and the sound effect makes me want to keep hovering over the pie pieces.

I voted for the last choice ("They're all great"), because so far I've almost universally liked the work of those directors and, frankly, I was looking for David Lynch on there to vote for. I'm a huge fan of Mulholland Dr. but that's pretty much it so far. I'll admit, I haven't seen even the majority of his films (including Inland Empire, which I am looking forward to), but what I have seen I've been significantly underwhelmed by (I wanted to write a Contrarian post about Blue Velvet for your Blog-a-thon, but couldn't get my hands on a copy to really make an effective argument).

PS - Is any one of those directors living? I'm not very good with my Europeans....

I realize this is a pretty diplomatic response, but I think it's the truth... they're all brilliant in different ways. I may personally like some of them more than others, but I am not prepared to say that any one of them is "not so great."

BTW I believe that Godard and Antonioni are the only directors on this list still with us.

First off, allow me to say that the pie chart that results from voting in this poll is one of the most mesmerizing, playful things I've seen in a long time. Wowie!

I've never been a fan of Robert Altman.

It's one of those things where I can appreciate the fact that he's an artist without appreciating the art. I like The Player, and I'll watch M*A*S*H, but I've just never felt all that involved by Altman's movies. The roaming camera, overlapping dialogue, slice-o-life narratives - none of this engages me much as a movie watcher. I want a big, larger-than-life experience at the theater, and his movies always have a kind of limping-along, aimless feel to them.

Godard is still alive, of course.

I didn't want to cop out and say 'none of the above,' so I picked John Ford. Antonioni would come in second, but I love Blow-up more than any of Ford's films.

If you had posted this a few months ago, I would have voted for Antonioni, whose Blow-Up and The Passenger I think are overrated. However, I finally saw L'Avventura recently, and it was stunning. Now, I get the love for him.

I actually would have voted for Howard Hawks if you had put him on the list. Yes, some of his films are very entertaining, but as an artist I just don't think he compares with the other greats. My dislike, however, mostly stems from Bringing Up Baby. I realize I'm in the minority, but I find that film to be singularly unfunny.

I would love to see a list like this of individual films. I voted for "None. They're all great," because each has made at least one movie I think is a classic. However, most have also made at least one film that is overrated.

Oh, and I think they're geniuses, but shouldn't Kurosawa, Bergman, and Woody Allen have been on the list?

Can I name a movie instead?

Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I don't doubt that it was once shocking and visually gritty in all its 16mm glory once upon a time, but what surprises me is its fanbase 30+ years later. Shocks are cheap -- once they run their course, there's nothing left -- thus all of the power of TCM is gone.

I can still watch Alien, Halloween, the Exorcist, Suspiria, Psycho -- hell, even Thing from Another World, Nosferatu, and (to be fair) Phantom of the Opera (w/ Lon Chaney Sr.) -- and be on the edge of my seat in anticipation of Orlok stiffly rising out of his box -- of the Phantom on the rooftop. I can't wait to see Hitchcock's camera close in on Norman Bates after the death of Abergast. I love seeing Michael Myers emerge of the darkness behind Laurie. The colors in Suspiria, Father Karras' conversations with the possessed Regan.

But with TCM, I want to take a few Tylenol, take the chainsaw away from Leatherface and put an end to Sally's perpetual scream, myself. Every few years I revisit films that I didn't like which have a reputation or a fanbase or are critically acclaimed "great" because I didn't like Citizen Kane when I first saw it. I didn't like Alien when I first saw that, but when I overcame some preconcieved expectation -- when I brought those films down off that vague idea of the "perfect" movie that pedestal -- I could appreciate them for what they actually were. Now that I've given it a second shot, I can really get into Kane. I adore Alien, and I'm glad I gave them another look.

But no matter how many times I come back to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it's a headache waiting to haunt me again. To be fair, it has a handful of moments I appreciate such one of the first kills that takes place suddenly and doesn't screw with the lame gimmicks ("open door #1, cue the cat"), some beautiful shots of the scenery, and horrific concepts.

I would have to say, Fellini. While I do grant that Fellini had an eye for performances, and certainly picked unusual subjects, as a European director, and consequently a subscriber/victim (?) of the 'auteur' school of thought, he should be held responsible for other, more technical aspects of his films as well... In my opinion, Fellini was a brilliant director- of actors, just not as good with film; this struck me particularly when I watched his later films like Satyricon.

I voted for Altman. In his defense, I haven't seen too many of his early films so I'm sure that colors my view of his work. I do find the movies he made after 1990 to be really dull and I've just never been really engaged in his work. I do have 3 Women & The Long Goodbye on my "must see soon" list so hopefully with those movies he'll win me over. Of the Altman I have seen, MASH, Nashville and Images have been favorites.

The "Contrarian Blog-a-Thon" looks like it's shaping up to be really interesting! If I had known about it earlier I would have participated but I found out too late. I'm looking forward to reading the contributions.

I'd vote for Altman, for many of the reasons Damian stated above, plus one more: Dr. T & the Women. The worst movie I've ever seen all the way through. Great cast, and as I watched I kept thinking, hey, this is pretty bad so far but Altman's a genius, so it has to get better, right? Then it got worse.

I like The Player, and Secret Honor, and probably a few others, but most of his films bore the hell out of me. Fortunately, I figured that out a few years ago and stopped watching them.

I picked Billy Wilder. At his best, he was a great writer who was pretty good (though never truly "great", imho) at translating his scripts to image form. Sunset Blvd., Ace in the Hole, etc.

But sometimes he wasn't even that. Stuff like a Foreign Affair and the Seven Year Itch isn't even interesting writing. Words so hung up on themselves you can watch the actors (some of them really good ones!) trembling before them in the presence of their author as they speak them.

I copped out and picked None. I would vote for John Ford, except I think my distaste for his films is mostly due to a strong aversion to John Wayne. I can appreciate the beautiful composition and direction of Ford's films, but John Wayne always struck me as less of an actor and more of a personality, someone who could do nothing but play versions of themself like Marilyn Monroe or Elvis. So it'd be unfair to hold that against Ford.

This is silly. To dislike a director because he made a couple bad films when the great films he made define cinematic history or a shift in cinematic history. For each director on this list I could name at least three films that did this, and three is far more than most generic directors that make you "care about the characters"... in actuality most on this list had more than three films going for them. And even when you focus on the worst films of their career you seem them trying to stretch the boundaries of what film can be, of how stories can be told. They take risks and chances, because they know they can and have done the other. That to me is what makes them all great directors... for their hits... and their misses. They never stood down from their artistic visions come glory or failure.

As much as I like Breathless,I have come to the conclusion that it must be François Truffaut's writing that respond to, not Godard's direction.

I really don't get the love for Godard. The lack of subtlety in Godard's films makes him look, to me, like Oliver Stone with subtitles.

Maybe I need to re-watch his stuff - I was fairly young when I saw his stuff. I dunno, though, it sure seems like a lot of effort

I couldn't honestly say I think any of those men are not great directors. I love them all.

But I can't help but wonder if you intentionally left David Lynch off the list, because you knew he'd be the one catching all the heat, and you're an admitted fan.

Don't get me wrong. I love your blog and come here every day, but c'mon! David Lynch is THE overrated auteur. I would even go so far to say that the majority of his films are excellent evidence in the argument against auteurism as a whole. I find them occasionally masterful examples of tone and atmosphere, but are usually little more than over-extended, narcissistic, wank-fests. I'm not even the type of person who needs a linear story, or everything gift-wrapped for me. It's just that at the end of the day, I don't find any of his blathering about identity to be all that meaningful.

When I heard Inland Empire was his most impenetrable to date, I quietly hoped it would end his career, if for no other reason than I wouldn't have to listen to all of my contemporaries talk about how they're into "deep" cinema, and then immediately site Lost Highway, but neglect REAL works of genius like Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. "But he's knocking on his OWN door, while he's INSIDE! Isn't that SO BRILLIANT!" Bah! If he can't tell me a story, then I'll just start a dream journal and analyze myself and get more out of it than trying to analyze his.

I know critics have written all sorts of essays trying to justify it, and rationalize it, but that's just it. It always sounds like they are TRYING to rationalize it, because it doesn't stand up on it's own.

I think Godard is the only one still alive. Antonioni I'm not sure about, as I've never followed the guy or his work very closely.

I picked None. Antonioni and Godard—who I accurately predicted would be the top vote-getters—each had a chance with me, but truthfully I've seen only one film by either director, and so have very little to go on. Each of the other listed directors has made at least one film that occupies a permanent spot in my pantheon—Vertigo, The Searchers, Eyes Wide Shut, La Dolce Vita, and McCabe and Mrs. Miller spring immediately to mind—and each of these films is one of those rare gems that demonstrate utter mastery of the craft, but in an invisible way.

Which is to say: under careful scrutiny, the films reveal astonishing technical brilliance, yes, but while actually watching the film—especially for the first time—the experience is so immersive, and the emotional content so vibrant and rich, that the film envelopes you totally, leaving no brainspace available to you for scrutinizing the technique. You forget your real life at these films. This is the truest kind of directorial greatness: the kind that can drive a story, or an idea, or even a simple feeling, straight into your heart. Too many hotshots in the Guy Ritchie model fail to realize this, and too many contemporary fans of this ilk celebrate the sort of craft that's proud of itself, parading around in full view while a half-baked, neglected story lurks somewhere in the underbrush.

With this criterion in mind, I have a candidate for addition to the list: Sidney Lumet. Talk about invisible brilliance. His films are spoken of in hushed tones, no list of the greatest films of the last fifty years is complete without at least a few of his, and yet his contributions to these films are so often overlooked. People extolling Network—another one of my all-time favorites—generally direct their adulation at two names: the first is Chayefsky, and the second is Finch. If a third pops up, it's usually Dunaway. Now, I would never dream of minimizing the extraordinary work that these three did in this picture; it was truly the high watermark of all three careers. But for Lumet not to get a substantial percentage of the film's due praise is criminal.

Consider, to cite one example of his magic, a scene discussed at length once by a friend of mine: the famous Ned Beatty boardroom tirade scene. Chayefsky's chosen words in this scene, as in every other scene, are precision-cut diamonds, and Beatty's opera-baritone delivery of the screed is pretty wonderful as well. But standing on these legs alone, would the scene have become one of the most unforgettable of 70s cinema? Consider how Lumet's contribution to the scene sent it over the top: remember the sheer length of that oak table dotted with green lamps, remember the chiaroscuro that makes Beatty appear as a God... and then remember that Beatty's character sets it up that way deliberately. Beatty selects this room expressly for the purpose of the tirade, Beatty selects Beale's seat at the far end of the table to emphasize the distance that the scene conveys, Beatty dims the lights and closes the blinds to cast himself in baroque shadow: all choices made, like the aforementioned voice in which he chooses to boom, to maximize dramatic effect. To maximize dramatic effect for Howard Beale, that is, and for the audience only by extension. For Lumet to have made the decision that all these affects and mannerisms that make the scene so great be tied directly to Beatty's character is the stuff of greatness. These touches make the scene last.

Will, I think the reason Lumet isn't usually included in this kind of list is that he doesn't really have a strong authorial stamp in terms of story. Like Stephen Frears, Robert Wise, and other perpetually underrated directors who work in this way, his style adjusts to the script, rather than altering the script to reflect his particular thematic concerns. That's why you don't hear films referred to as "Lumetesque", "Wisean" or "Frearsian."

Oh, and I picked Antonioni. It was easy as I'm record as disliking him. Now, I've only seen two of his films that I can recall, but since they're his two most highly regarded -- Blow-Up and L'Aventura -- I feel secure in thinking that I just don't dig his mood. Personally, I find it impossible to care about characters whose main preoccupation is that they find it impossible to care.

Antonioni puts me in mind of my favorite SNL character -- Dieter, from "Sprockets." His ennui-soaked tales of apathy fail to amuse me. Now is the time at Scanners when we dance, or something.

(On the other hand, I was in film school when I saw L'Aventura. Perhaps I should give it another go. Sorry, I'm a bad contrarian.)

Just want to add in, both Godard and Antonioni is alive. Antonioni is 95 years old.

I picked Godard, although I've only seen one of his films, Band A Parte, which I did actually like (not love). I'm in a contrarian mood though and wanted to pick *somebody*, so I figured to side with my buddy Herzog and pick on the guy's "intellectual masturbation."

A word of advice for pacheco. If you don't typically like Lynch films, you'd probably do well to avoid Inland Empire.

Several people have wondered why David Lynch isn't on the list. I love the conspiratorial accusation that Jim left him off because he's a big Lynch fan.

Actually, I'm a big Lynch fan too. I don't like everything he's done, but he's probably my favorite modern director. This probably why he's not on the list. Lynch is too modern even now to be considered a "great director." All the names on the list are what the academic set would consider as "great" or "influential."

To those who dislike Lynch for not being linear enough, I would suggest you watch The Straight Story, a beautiful, and linear, movie. I would also suggest Twin Peaks, a show that is arguably the reason that cinematic-style television is now en vogue. I think Jim would agree with me when I say that Twin Peaks is Lynch at his best and it cannot be easily overlooked.

In the spirit of anti-contrarianism, I've followed the self-proclaimed injust methods of many of these posts, and made my selection on transparently unreasonable grounds.

Robert Altman. Not because I didn't like the one or two films I saw, or because it was indeed long ago and my memory is hazy. No. It's the name. Robert Altman. You can't be a great film-maker with a name like that. Roberto, maybe. Bob, possibly. But Robert? A great accountant, a good general, at best.

And Altman? Alt-freaking-man? As a moniker for greatness? Not happening.

Antonioni is the only one on this list who could possibly rate worse than John Ford. Fashion photographic gloss as philosophy.

Contrary to most haters' contention, Antonioni's style is actually NOT pretentious, for it pretends to be nothing other than what it is--the evidence of vacancy. At least the style is honest, where Ford's is mendacious, but it honestly delivers a whole lot of nothing. It's a beautiful nothing, for sure--the compositions would be perfect...if it weren't for the people in them.

Technically, Antonioni is amazing in terms of creating visual and sonic landscapes. His use of sound in L'Eclisse, for instance, is astonishing. But the precision and beauty are at the service of a vision of humanity that might charitably be described as adolescent nihilism. But the adolescent nihilist, for all his smokin-in-the-boys-room bluster, usually grows up, and continues to learn; the undeniably advanced style that delivers Antonioni's lack of substance indicates a mature and hardened satisfaction with its own emptiness.

Zabriske Point is often cited as his worst film, and it may very well be, but it's the only film of his that resembles something made by a human being for other human beings, and its flaws are far more compelling than any of his other films' perfections. The Pink Floyd explosion at the end might be the most brazenly adolescent gesture in Antonioni's filmography (wait, no, the MIMES!), but for me at least, it's the most beautiful for being attached to recognizable emotions, and it almost looks like an adolescent gesture from someone who might grow up. And then the passenger isn't too bad. But, still, what an inflated rep.

Thanks, Bob. I think you're totally right about the grounds for Lumet's exclusion, although it's unfortunate. The class of director that he represents, as you described it, is one I've always regarded as exemplary. The script really should dictate the style, pretty much always. In an ideal world, those guys would get all the accolades.

But working within our new terms, i.e. restricting ourselves to directors with consistent aesthetic and thematic concerns, etc., where the hell is Ingmar Bergman on this list? And where the hell is Kurosawa? I have no qualms whatsoever with the David Lynch lovefest going on here, as I'm a huge and loyal Lynch enthusiast, but only one other person in the comments (DVC) mentioned these two giants whose spectres certainly loom larger than Lynch's. Woody Allen was also name-checked, and he's pretty seminal too.

I voted for Kubrick. His movies look great but I feel nothing when I watch them. Maybe that was his point but it's not what I yearn for in a movie. I want honest, warm human emotion and a Kubrick film is the antithesis of that.

Altman's character might not always be becoming but at least they feel real.

i chose JEAN-LUC GODARD because frankly i think his films are all head, no heart. they bore me. i can see how groundbreaking he is, but i think that other directors have incorporated some of his techniques and made them more entertaining and less emotionally obscure. martin scorcese is the first director that comes to mind. would that godard had made a movie as formally and emotionally compelling as "mean streets."

by the way, godard is not alone--i think all of the french new wavers have problems simply telling a story.

Will, the frustrated screenwriter within wholeheartedly agrees with you. The frustrated director, however, believes you to be a a dangerous charlatan!

Where's Tarantino?

I think a director that is moviing into the "great" category, but shouldn't, is Clint Eastwood. I tried very hard to see the "greatness" in both Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby, but just couldn't. Both left me with nagging questions regarding the plot and were just not as rewarding to me as I hoped. Eastwood is a very good director (my favorite by him is still High Plains Drifter), but I don't think anything he has directed has held up as well as two of the truly great films he has acted in: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Dirty Harry (almost perfectly directed by Don Siegel; not a minute is wasted).

I voted for Billy Wilder, even though I love several of his movies, because I think he's a hair overrated - he simply doesn't have the visual chops of most of the others on this list and his films are all too often filmed plays with the characters waiting for the time to spout their lines rather than actually engaging in 'dialogue'.

I would be happy to defend the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre as one of the two or three greatest horror movies ever made. It's not effective because it's shocking, it's effective because it's get-under-your-skin creepy, a tactic that the Michael Bay remake never even tried to learn. And it has some fun subtext about patriarchy and capitalism.

Jim Jarmusch. I've had a lot of really smart people I really respect tell me how great he is, and I watch his films and think, "This is someone's freshman year film school project. Except Tom Waits is in it."

Maybe it's me. No, wait, no it's not.

Funny how so many people are voting for directors of whose works they've seen so little. Godard/Antonioni is over-rated is a conclusion you make after seeing one of their films? Even Ozu's films had enough distinction among them to be seen as parts of, not wholly encompassing, his oeuvre. Barely, but still. Interesting responses.

Kubrick by a distance.

I liked several of his movies mostly those before the mess that is 'A Clockwork Orange' but other than 'Barry Lyndon' he continued making films that were without soul and anything relevant to say.

And even then he made only three genuine great films 'Dr. Strangelove', '2001' and 'Barry Lyndon'. That's hardly enough to put him alongside Ford, Hitchcock, Welles, Renoir, Rossellini, Truffaut et al.

I pick Altman. I can understand why he is revered. There's no question he was an original talent. It may be my fault that I have failed to appreciate the majority of his films, but the fact is they generally leave me bored. I haven't seen everything he's made, but I have seen enough and I've tried to grasp the supposed brilliance of "M*A*S*H," "Nashville," "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," "Short Cuts," and he even sampled some widely acknowledged misfires like "Quintet." On the other hand, I enjoyed "The Player," and consider "The Long Goodbye" a masterpiece, a possible contender for my all-time top 10. I haven't written him off, however, and will no doubt give some of his films another look. For the record, although I think Kubrick deserves his esteemed place in cinema, the only one of his films I liked on first viewing was "Spartacus," which he more or less disowned. If I hadn't had the patience to give "Barry Lyndon," "The Shining," or "Eyes Wide Shut" a second, and in some cases, a third and fourth chance to impress me, I would never have had the pleasure of appreciating the genius that I believe he and his films possessed. Maybe someday, I'll see "Nashville" again and see what others have seen, or maybe I'll conclude that his films just aren't to my liking.

jordon:

by the way, godard is not alone--i think all of the french new wavers have problems simply telling a story.

It seems to me that Godard and other French New Wave directors weren't trying to simply tell classical stories in the usual way. (Would Masculine Feminine still be quite as interesting today as his attempt at a sociological portrait of French youth in the mid-'60s if he felt the need to turn it into a typical, possibly predictable classical narrative?) So it seems rather silly to condemn them for not doing something that they clearly weren't interested in doing in the first place. I'm guessing you're more a classical Hollywood storytelling kind of moviegoer? Believe me, I don't mean that as a slight; to each his own, of course. Call me an aesthetic heathen or whatever, but personally, that disregard for conventional narrative is precisely what I find exhilarating about Godard, Truffaut and the rest of the French New Wave ilk.

I vote for Fellini. Smart guy, innovative director, but really, I just don't get why so many film lovers are in love with the guy. Honestly, I haven't seen that many of his film, but from what I have seen, and from what I have read about him, his work seems so personal as to be pretty useless. I have been unable to relate to his films(the one's I've seen) at all, except for some of the later parts of La Doce Vita. I think I
"get" him, its just that his work doesn't translate for me. Scorsese's early films are also intensly personal, but Scorsese finds themes that resonate with me in ways that Fellini doesn't. He's very good, but for me to agree that he's great, I'd have to actually find a reason to care about his work. I have yet to do so.

stanley kubrick's the most overrated of all the directors listed- he's a decadent formalist. kubrick is too attached to dry, chilly, heavily composed static shots. his aesthetic of beautiful detachment often has no organic connection to his material. it's appropriate for the large-scale, cosmic satire of 2001, and the study of dehumanization in FULL METAL JACKET, but in most of the other films the high-toned, studied, cold style is in total conflict with everything else in onscreen. only a man of obsessive inflexibility (or self-indulgent aestheticism) would use the same narrow, limited style for movies as diverse as THE KILLING, LOLITA, PATHS OF GLORY, and BARRY LYNDON. it has the effect of making kubrick look like a superior, detached observer, and the humans in his films often come out looking like soulless puppets.