Who matters?

I don't think the Coens or Soderbergh are all that controversial, though individual films of there's can divide people, but what movie doesn't? I'm not even sure if DePalma really gets that much "hate it" attention -- it's more like he's got a group of devoted admirers while others take his movies on more of an individual basis or just quietly dislike him.

Tarentino, however, really does seem to stir people up. Just look at the reviews for "Grindhouse" -- it seemed as if every critic felt a need to stake his or her ground pro- or anti-QT and that seemed to usually predict which half of the film they preferred. I can't think of any filmmaker who is so widely acclaimed, yet who also arouses such deep dislike. Some of that is because of his ultra-pulp inclinations, etc., but obviously a lot of it all also has to do with his all too well-known persona. If his personality was more like Steve Soderbergh's, he might get better reviews but less press.

The only other acclaimed director with a relatively sizable audience I can think of who seems to similarly divide people is Sofia Coppola. In her case, though, it seems to be another round of the eternal stylve vs. substance debate.

Finally, considering how financially successful his movies are, someone out there must love Michael Bay -- though among cinephile types, he's more like George W. Bush -- a uniter, not a divider.

Jim -- I now realized I misunderstood your question a bit. Feel free to delete me with extreme prejudice!

Bob, that wasn't exactly what I was asking, but I think you raise some points worth discussing. I actually thought of throwing Bay in there myself, as something of a red herring, just because so many hate him, though his films are often very popular. But, you're right, I'm really asking more about essential/influential filmmakers than just popular or controversial ones.

"The Coens? Quentin Tarantino? Brian DePalma? Steven Soderbergh?" Every one of them has been around for years now so I think the problem is that we are not in a "must see" age anymore. I may be alone in my thinking but bear with me. When Sarris was writing about L'AVVENTURA being a first-run must see there was no cable, no Netflix, no downloads. There were film books, film discussions in coffee houses and then the movies themselves, which were in fact an event for the cineaste. But we're in a different time now, one ruled by multiplexes and instant gratification. I wasn't even alive yet when many of the great art films of the fifties and sixties were released so I came to them pre-packaged. I had read probably everything one person could read about L'AVVENTURA before I ever even saw it. And if a great film comes out now it is equally disseminated, dissected and divied out to the masses before it even hits the local theatre, at which point the cineaste will generally avoid it not wanting to spend $35 on tickets, drinks and popcorn only to have a couple of idiots who seemingly stumbled into the wrong movie talking in front of them. So what happens? Naturally, it goes to the top of the Netflix queue.

I hope I'm being coherent here. I'm not saying that there are not important filmmakers anymore, there certainly are, it's just that with all the possibilities now open to the independently financed filmmaker the first-run showing is increasingly not as important. Look at what Soderbergh did with the release of BUBBLE for instance.

As for sparking discussions, sadly for me most debates people want to engage in with me (because, you know, I'm that "movie" guy - I'm sure everyone here is that "movie" guy to most of their friends and aquaintences) about film involves the cliched crap available in the multiplex. Just yesterday my neighbor had to tell me all about THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM's fantastic use of cinematography (and this just after commenting on Michael Atkinson's site about that very thing). I have nothing against the BOURNE ULTIMATUM or any other action thriller, personally I really love action thrillers. It's just that no one outside of my well-travelled cinematic wife and the wonderful online film community wants to talk to me about, say, CITY OF GOD or VIRIDIANA or L'AVVENTURA for that matter. When they feel like they should get serious with me it's always CITIZEN KANE or THE GODFATHER, two masterpieces no doubt but aaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh!!!!

So that's my semi-coherent rant on the subject. Because of the times and technology we're past the must-see film. Too bad.

The leading American auteur today I think is David Lynch (though I hope his next film gets a wider release than the ultra-underground INLAND EMPIRE).

There are very few directors now who you can say are true auteurs whose next work creates great anticipation (Love him or hate him, I think Tarantino is one of the few name auteurs today. His BFF Robert Rodriguez has made some good films, not yet developed a signature style of his own.)

Some other auteurs: there is some buzz that the Coens are "back" with their next film. Also, to quote the late Ms. Kael, I "appreciate great trash," so I'm stoked for Dario Argento's "Mother of Tears" this winter. His cult horror films "Suspiria" and "Inferno" were long meant to be part of a trilogy. Now he is completing it 30 years later.

Question for Jim: would you consider Spielberg to be an auteur? He doesn't fit the mold since he's so associated with mega-blockbusters, yet he does have somewhat of a signature style now.

'The Fountain' seemed to divide the young film buff population, who had otherwise been fully on Aronofsky's side .

Also, I can see how the films of Todd Solondz, whom I love, could divide audiences greatly.

The essential/influential films these days, the ones that spur the kinds of conversation and anticipation and must-see obligations, are documentaries. But Ken Burns is probably the only documentary filmmaker the informed (non-geek) filmgoing public can all name, so that doesn't answer your question.

David Lynch used to matter, but hasn't for years; Martin Scorsese has been a filmmaker who matter for four decades, but is probably too middle-brow to qualify; the Coens have had such a bland spell, maybe NO COUNTRY will make them essential again; Paul Haggis wants to be the answer to your question but has never been anything but middle-brow.

Sad to say, the mantle has passed to premium cable: No movies engendered the kind of anticipation and discussion THE SOPRANOS and THE WIRE have in the last year.

These directors all spawn love-it-or-hate-it debates, and are usually considered must-sees by film buffs:

Paul Thomas Anderson
Darren Aronofksy
Wes Anderson
Sofia Coppola

Jim,

I think your question only makes sense if you also ask WHO feels a certain film or filmmakers is a MUST SEE. Even when film criticism was part of (somewhat) mainstream conversation in the 60s, you still have to realize that darlings like Godard, Bergman, and Antonioni still didn't mean squat to 95% of the movie-going public. Godard was a must see among leftist intellectuals, and Antonioni was a must-see for the art exhibition set, but they were never ever anywhere near the "must see" status of films like, say, "Transformers" which is a "must see" because advertisers tell us it is the "must-see motion picture event of the summer." What is a "motion-picture event" by the way?

Today, I think there are still plenty of "must sees" for the leftist intellectual crowd or the festival attendee crowd and you named a few of them: Kiarostami, Wong, and for an even more select crowd: Tsai, Hou, Apichatpong Weerasathekul and still the old maters: Godard, Resnais, etc.

There is no such thing as "the audience" but rather many different audiences, so it's a tough question to answer without more context.

Chris L: You may be right. Maybe I'm coming at this somewhat backwards, because it seems to me that there WAS, in fact, a significantly larger, more sophisticated (perhaps because older) audience for "art films" (especially of the foreign-language variety) in the '60s and '70s than there is today -- people who went to grown-up movies, when perhaps there were also more grown-up movies in what was considered the "mainstream." Maybe there are no filmmakers who consistently reach such an audience today, because that particular audience doesn't exist.

At my neighborhood block party this past weekend, neighbors (mostly "professionals" in their 30s and 40s, along with some retirees and others in their 20s) who know what I do for a living were asking me how things were going, and I mentioned what a week it had been with the deaths of Bergman and Antonioni on the same day. A very few had heard of one or the other, but I don't recall anybody who knew about both. I guess I'm sheltered -- that really surprised me.

I would disagree with you, Jim, and say that von Trier perfectly fits the bill. First, he's obviously controversial, and individuals with great taste find themselves disagreeing strongly over the merits of his films. His films also seem to spark contradictory interpretations. Second, he is very influential, being the leading member of Dogme 95, and then recently being part of the think tank that resulted in Red Road. I also think he is more well known than Abbas Kiarostami or Wong Kar-Wai if for no other reason than several of his films have been in English with name actors. My opinion may be tainted by the fact that I am a huge fan, but I believe later generations will look back on him in a very similar light as we currently look back on Antonioni and Bergman. And like those two directors, unlike the American directors you listed (though I enjoy many of their films), von Trier has the potential (at least for me) to change not just my view of cinema but my view of the world.

Mr Emerson:
I'm not surprised the average person hasn't heard of either Antonioni or Bergman. By and large, directors are not well known figures to the general public. If you were to ask a random person on the street to name 5 film directors, you could probably predict with a high degree of accuracy who they would name. Most people see movies because they have been marketed well, have actors they like, or are based on some property they hold dear (novel, television program, toy). This may be because the process of making a film is less obvious to most people than other works of art. A director's role on a film is more nebulous to people than the author of a novel or an album by a band.

Unfortunately, I fear Antonioni and Bergman's films will become lost in time like poor Roy Batty's memories. Given the endless means of other entertainment, people of my generation (I'm 24) would probably tell you they "don't have time" to revisit these old films. Intellectual curiosity is slowly being drained out of our youth, so to find it coupled with a sense of history and an interest in classic cinema is a rare thing indeed. Sad, too, since L'Avventura seems particularly poignant in an age when news about an international war is usurped by a debutante's incarceration.

In my experience,the two must-see films of this past year (for semi-serious film goers at least) were probably Pan's Labyrinth and Children of Men. I was living in a college town in Texas, which only recently got its second movie theater, and the film selection was generally limited to what would be playing at any megaplex in the country, so the selection of foreign films over the past year was pretty much limited to Pan's Labyrinth and Volver (which played for maybe two weeks).

Pan's Labyrinth, especially, seemed to divide people pretty predictably with its violence and somewhat ambiguous ending. Of course, the people I'm talking about aren't exactly what one would normally call "cinephiles", but they are regular moviegoers with a genuine appreciation of film. From what I understand of the early '60s, many of the people going to art-house screenings were just well-cultured and not specifically cinephilic, so this seems to be a reasonable approximate.

In general, though, I would say that nowadays there is somewhat less respect for the idea of the auteur among the general public, with a few exceptions (QT first among them). The discussion tends to center more around individual films. This is perhaps because film enthusiasts no longer have as great a sense of general culture, but are rather more interested in just watching and talking about films.

After mentioning the block party I can see that you are that "movie guy" as well. But I'm not surprised about Antonioni. I was on vacation in Vermont with friends when Bergman and Antonioni died and everyone knew Bergman (if being unfamiliar with his work) but none of them had a clue as to who was Antonioni.

As to "must sees" for audiences today (and yesterday) I agree with Chris L. Most of these filmmakers mean nothing to the average filmgoer. A friend in Vermont brought it home perfectly, though inadvertantly, for me when he asked me when I was going to stop writing about movies no one's ever heard of. For him a good film discussion involves current trends, box office and nostalgia for the eighties. For me it doesn't. And there's a lot more like him out there than there will ever be of the art crowd.

"Whose films today spark similar sensations, and love-or-hate debate?...Are any of the candidates European?"

In my admittedly limited experience, those who aren't American are Asian-- Takashi Miike, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, to a lesser extent Takashi Shimizu and Shinya Tsukamoto.

Though after reading the comments, I do have to agree with DVC that von Trier would likely qualify, and for the reasons he gives; how many Americans went to see Dogville just because of the cast, and came out asking "who the [expletive] is this [expletive] von Trier fellow?"

(Harmony Korine SHOULD qualify, because everyone should see Gummo, but that ain't gonna happen any time soon.)

Pat, I see where you're coming from (I'm from this God forsaken generation, too, I just turned 24) and it's saddening to me. I mentioned to someone a few years ago that I was going to see the new Scorsese movie, they asked me "What's that?", not as in 'What's Scorsese's new movie' but just as in 'What's a Scorsese?". When I said it was "The Aviator", they said "Oh that movie with DiCaprio about planes? That looked stupid". And these were intelligent college students, the type of people that would have been going to Bergman festivals in the 60's and 70's, and they didn't know who Martin Scorsese was. I wouldn't have been surprised if they didn't know most directors, but I thought everyone knew Scorsese, Hitchcock, and Spielberg. I think Jonathan is right, this just isn't a must see age anymore. However, it still is for me. I'll be there at the opening of the next Scorsese and Spielberg movies. If Kurosawa, Bergman, and Truffaut were still making movies I'd be seeking them out (they wouldn't really have "openings" like Spielberg so I'd have to look for them), in fact there are still quite a few of theirs that I haven't seen, so I've still got some seeking to do. I don't know how to fix this mindset in people, if it can be done at all. But I'm still here waiting for the next auteurs. There are some good directors in this new generation (Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron, Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola, etc.), and maybe someday they'll be considered this generation's Bergman, or Scorsese, or whoever.

He isn't a director, but anything written by Charlie Kaufman seems to have the status of a must-see by film lovers, and has at times produced rather furious debate.

David Lynch.
Tim Burton.
Paul Thomas Anderson.
Quentin Tarantino.

I think Wes Anderson, Lynch, Paul Thomas Anderson, Altman (don't know if he'd count in this example), and Sofia Coppola would definately fit into the criteria in your addendum. Both Andersons have certainly been parodied in advertising, and the rest are pretty high profile and all create very differing opinions from the critical mass.

I'd add in Jarmusch and Tarantino, however it seems to me that both of them usually are almost universely praised. (It's a dubious source, but both of their latest films have over 80% at rotten tomatoes.)

When I first began getting interested in Godard particularly, I was struck by reading Ebert's reviews of some of his films and reading about how there were lines (actual lines!) outside a theater playing a new Godard film. It does seem that there was more of an excitement about film art.

Just to begin with, to answer one of you addendum questions:

(Then again, could a television comedy show as smart and aware of the diversity of culture and pop culture as "SCTV" exist today? Actually, such a thing did exist not all that many years ago on HBO: "Mr. Show with Bob and David.")

Yes, it could, and does: "The Simpsons". That show is a wonderful source of not only parody, but tribute, to some of the great diversity of film history (Kubrick in particular is a constant source of inspiration).

As far as directors who matter, I'm afraid I'd have to echo the sentiments of some of the previous posters, who mention that very few directors are marquee names among the general public, and those who are (Spielberg, Michael Bay, Peter Jackson, Sam Raimi) are so more for their blockbuster appeal.

But discounting the general public, the question is valid when discussing who matters among people who are, let's say, reasonably sophisticated film fans. Unfortunately, even among cineastes, I don't think there is a foreign filmmaker whose films provoke widespread discussion across the board (Wong Kar-Wai might be closest, but he's nowhere near the level that Bergman and Antonioni were at). Although come to think of it, after his masterpiece "Children of Men" (and the great "Y Tu Mama Tambien"), Alfonso Cuaron may be the next big name director from outside the United States.

So that leaves a handful...I think that David Lynch would be up there (my own dislike for his work notwithstanding). And yes, Quentin Tarantino seems to provoke a level of discussion rarely seen whenever a new film of his comes out ("Kill Bill" provoked many discussions on whether art can emerge out of a pastiche of homages).

I would have to include Steven Spielberg on this list as well, even though he is extremely prominent. The Spielberg of the 2000s, in particular, seems to be less concerned with crowd-pleasing uniformity and more idiosyncratic and daring. "A.I.", "War of the Worlds" and "Munich" have all provoked lengthy analysis, both pro and con.

Scorsese has mattered for a while, but he has become too much of a brand that fails to surprise people. The sad failure of "Gangs of New York", the underwhelming "The Aviator" and even the generally-loved (and massively overrated) "The Departed" have all failed to generate much in the way of insight or detailed discussion into Scorsese's overall ouevre.

The Coens, as much as I love them, have had a few too many knock-off films of late to qualify as being directors who matter. Ditto Soderbergh. What about De Palma? I would say he does matter (at least among cinephiles), because, love him or hate him, his films provoke impassioned discussions.

Among the younger directors, the great Paul Thomas Anderson has made three films in a row that all have been rich with meaning, and I for one am looking forward to his upcoming "There Will Be Blood".

In general, though, I think we can agree that younger viewers are becoming less-and-less aware of the authorial voice behind certain films, and thus less and less interested in the works of directors who aim to have a distinctive style. That is indeed a sad development, as tracing the growth (or decline) of a director is one of the chief pleasures of the cinephile.

I take it you've read this article from popmatters.com?

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/features/article/46851/visionary-valhalla-films-future-exalted-ones/

Interesting take on a lot of things you just mentioned.

QT has to be the most obvious answer. I'd also throw DePalma in there as a seriously polarizing director, mainly due to his insistence on using sex and violence to the point of near exploitation. DePalma is almost a parody of himself so I'm not sure somebody could parody it any further (not a knock - I loves me some DePalma).

Alejandro Inarritu has to have one of the most distinct styles out there. Right there with Wes Anderson, though only Anderson would really qualify as polarizing amongst these two. You either love Anderson or hate him - there doesn't seem to be any in-between.

Spielberg has to be among the most "must see" of the must sees and he is often quickly maligned by a large group of people who can no longer seem to get past their own biases towards the man. Sure, he's got some films that try to manipulate the audience a bit too much but you can't deny the man's skill. He's ridiculously good at what he does and he's joined at the hip with one of the greatest living cinematographers. Must-see and polarizing for sure.

Cronenberg would have been on this list in the past. 70s-80s Cronenberg could certainly be parodied. Now, I'm not so sure. For me personally, he will always be a "must see".

I'm not really buying Soderbergh here. He really changes it up from one film to another and any sort of debate about his collective films would certainly be limited to the most serious filmgoers. I'm certainly not driven to see every film he makes.

I'm surprised you didn't mention Felinni in the list of the departed in your opening. I think everybody has seen a parody of "serious Eurpoean art film" at least a dozen times in their lifetime but I had never actually seen a real world example of what was being parodied that went to the extremes of the parodies until I saw Juliet of the Spirits.

All: I think Lynch may be the closest to the kind of figure I was thinking of. He's had hits ("Elephant Man") and over-reaching big-budget flops ("Dune"), but he wins festival awards and most of his films are highly anticipated, and considered "must-sees" by many moviegoers in their 20s and 30s, at least. That said, Lynch's commercial appeal is tiny compared to Bergman or Antonioni.

Jonathan Lapper: I fear you may be right about us not living in much of a "must-see" age. Few things (beyond "The Sopranos") become uniting cultural events. And you're right that the names I threw out to get the discussion started have all been around for years. But so had Bergman and Antonioni when they first made a splash in America. "L'Avventura" was MA's sixth film I think, and Bergman had made ten or so before "Monika" and "Sawdust and Tinsel" -- with "Smiles of a Summer Night" and "The Seventh Seal" still a few years down the road.

Chris: Thanks for the popmatters link. Hadn't seen it, but I will check it out.

Alex: "The Simpsons" is, of course, a great example. The pop culture references fly so thick and fast it's dizzying sometimes. I've watched the show with people who didn't "get" half of them, but they still thought the show was funny!

Robert D: I don't think there's any question Spielberg is an auteur with a distinctive style and vision. He also has the kind of creative freedom that Bergman and Antonioni had. But then, he's the most popular filmmaker of all time, too...

Kyle:
I am continually disappointed by our generation, and I feel it will only get worse. In an age of YouTube, when someone can seek out entertainment that appeals to his own personal quirks with laser-like precision, why would he want to watch a film that could be interpreted different ways? Our age group doesn't want to be stimulated, unless it is in the exact way it expects going in. Surprise thought has become a vice to most people.

I fear that in 50 years we (the younger film fans) may be like the 'books' in Fahrenheit 451, wandering the countryside discussing old films no one has seen.

I hate to say it, because the Simpsons may be my favorite show of all time, but that was ten (or twelve) years ago. Yes, the pop cultural references probably fly thicker then they ever did but at the expense of the characters who have become almost interchangeable. I know this isn't a Simpsons article but I just had to vent.

"Even when film criticism was part of (somewhat) mainstream conversation in the 60s, you still have to realize that darlings like Godard, Bergman, and Antonioni still didn't mean squat to 95% of the movie-going public."

No, the situation is massively different today. It's true that the vast bulk of the population in 1969, say, hadn't seen a, say, Godard film. But:

1. Those films were widely reviewed and discussed in mass market publications. Similar directors today (for example, Kiarostami or the Dardennes) rarely receive widespread reviews or discussion outside of specialist publications and a comparative mere handful of reviewers (at least, in print venues).

2. More importantly, some minimal knowledge of the New Wave or Bergman (for example) was considered essentially mandatory for a cultured or intelligent person of a certain type. That's simply never true today. No one will consider you a philistine or boor for not having ever bothered to see any particular movie whatsoever. Movies in 1969 were much closer to and more an inherent part of the heart of the culture then.

3. There's almost no sense of excitement over film now (at least, excluding highly promoted events for young people like Harry Potter movies or Die Harderer VI). People are very rarely notably interested in a particular movie opening in the "I have to see that" way. Part of that is certainly DVDs, but the film "world" seems generally sedate and even a bit slow compared to, say, hip-hop or fiction literature (I've gotten bugged by a dozen different friends to read Marukami or Cloud Atlas or Foer or something while none ever pressed a film on me).

I believe you spelled out the question here: "Is there a filmmaker whose style is so recognizable that it could be parodied " - And I think if you discount Lars Von Trier and Wong Kar-Wai (which I, personally, would not do, but I get your point about exposure), then I think your list must have David Lynch, the oft-mentioned Coen Brothers, Werner Herzog, Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, PT Anderson (to some extent). thats the top of my head. I'll let you know when I'm at the bottom.

Oh, and how could I forget Michael Mann, Hayao Miyazaki, Takashi Miike.

Hmn. Lynch matters to a lot (like myself), and is easily parodied, but not quite in the limelight enough, it seems, to "matter" enough to be parodied often or at all.

The Coen brothers make parodies themselves so to parody them would be pointless, and really really hard to do well, or for longer than five minutes.

If all we're talking about is what auteur is as important to film as the two masters we lost, however, I think I can safely say that _INLAND EMPIRE_ and _Syndromes and a Century_ are two of the only recent films to have kicked me in the butt in a similar way to those (late) dudes' work. But then there's also Michael Mann, and Alfonso Cuaron, and David Fincher, and Quentin Tarantino, and Wes Anderson, and PT Anderson. Nobody's perfect but I'd argue each of those filmmakers has made a sizable impact on cinema in the past ten years, even in the last year (we're still waiting on representation from those last two, tho). I'm sure there's others I'm forgetting. And, to be honest, I didn't read all the comments so this may be a re-hash. If so, sorry. If not, cool.

Oh yeah: sorry to beat a dead horse, or a favorite of our host's, but Guillermo Del Toro could be made fun of real easy. And I'd argue he deserves it. Especially after soul-assault that is _Pan's Labyrinth_.

Anyways, an interesting question, as ever, Senor Emerson.

I just remembered an obvious one that no-one seems to have mentioned: Michel Gondry. Although "Eternal Sunshine" was pretty much universally applauded, "The Science of Sleep" was quite divisive and certainly featured the director's very distinctive visual style. Gondry's films are certainly considered must-see for a certain type of movie lover, after "Eternal Sunshine" and his immense body of music video work. Among aspiring film-makers, he has to be one of the most cited influences - and we're sure to see increased imitation and parody of his reckless inventiveness and gauche visual style in the near future.

Oh, and he's at the very least marginally European.

Following on what both pat and burritoboy wrote, I have to both condemn and praise "this generation" of movie-goers (I am 35 - am I "this" generation, "that" generation, or am I just getting way too old too fast).

Condemnation: I have spent several years in film school quite recently (finished the last degree in '05). I was consistently depressed at the near total lack of interest in any filmmaker pre-Tarantino and in just about anything foreign. This wasn't the general populace, but graduate level film students... and not just film production students (who seldom seem to like movies very much) but even my fellow film studies students. Particularly galling to me is the overwhelming need for the younger students to prove how smart and hip they are by laughing at any old movies that seem slightly awkward or, in particular, at any moments that express sincere emotion.

Praise: There were, of course, exceptions to the rule, though not as many as I would hope. And this group of receptive and enthusiastic cinephiles has a huge advantage that previous generations did not have (at least if they didn't live in New York or Paris) and that is access to a vast wealth of film history on DVD. This has produced a very knowledgeable group of film lovers who actively engage with cinema of many kinds, and can easily pursue any avenue they wish merely by jiggering their Netflix queues, or hunting online for even more obscure titles.

I think both Jim and burritoboy are right to find out that no filmmakers enjoy the same widespread critical discussion today that Bergman, Antonioni, Godard et al enjoyed in the 60s, but that's much more a reflection on the state of film criticism (in mass media) today than on the state of cinephilia.

Cinephilia is alive and well, and thriving on the margins, even if the noise from the Hollywood publicity machine tends to drown out the signal. I strongly recommend Adrian Martin and Jonathan Rosenbaum's (editors) "Movie Mutations" for anyone who despairs over the state of film culture today and needs their spirits boosted.

And I haven't even mentioned that fact that we never had film blogs before which have quickly become a way for film lovers of different interests to connect, communicate and spread the word.

Chris L.

There was quite a bit of discussion about this last week on Dennis' SLIFR blog. Rather than re-iterate all of it here's the link to his comments: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8795280&postID=591175412085475212

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Gus Van Sant. He is (off the top of my head) the director that people accuse of being both pretentious (b/c his films are deliberate, or "artsy") AND middlebrow (he's not Bela Tarr).

Personally, I think he's one of the best American mainstream filmmakers working today.

The first Director that came to my mind is Terry Gilliam. Certainly he hasn't had a "hit" in some time, but his visual style and propensity for off the wall humor makes him numero uno for parodying. And talk about splitting the vote with "Brazil". I think he still polarizes film goers. And whether the cinephile wants to admit it or not, they all are expectant to see his take on Don Quixote.

Paul Greengrass has that distinct visual flair he has added to all of his films (all four or five.) And they have all been exceptional films. He's just getting started, but I think he's up there.

Oliver Stone seems to have become a parody of himself.

Goat mentioned Takashi Miike, and he couldn't be more correct in his effect to split audiences with the insanely over the top stories, characters and violence. Though difficult to parody, because he doesn't stick to one style - great director.

Ridley Scott's sharp visual style from "Alien" and "Bladerunner" to "Matchstick Men" and it appears "American Gangster" keeps him relevant, and a hot ticket...easily parodied.

But it's funny, as some of these Directors have a strong style, and certainly have say over how the script turns out, I always felt like the definition of auteur was that the person directing was also writing. In which case, while maybe not as important as your snobby cinephile would think, Kevin Smith has certainly found his audience of lovers and haters, and with his rat-a-tat dialogue and slack jawed, ho-hum directing style could be easily parodied.

Wes Anderson has been mentioned, and I think he's one of the best answers thus far. Personally I love the man.

But here again, we're considering who's big now, in this current moment, taking on the Hollywood mentality that you're only as good as your last movie which is kind of lame, because, while Scorcese's most recent works may not stand up, his distinct camera movements and pulverizing edits put him at the top of the list. Just take a look at his American Express commercial! The man still has it.

Jeane Pierre Jeunet, Tom Tykwer and Michael Haneke are all very much European, talked about amongst cinephiles, have had some success here in the states, sometimes polarize and can easily be parodied (and keep me interested with every new film.) I remember seeing a trailer for "The Princess and the Warrior" and within the first few frames I knew who directed it - very exciting feeling to have when you like the director so much. The same happened with "The Devil's Backbone" which I like just as much, if not a little more than "Pan's Labyrinth".

The "cinephile" today I think is often drawn to cinema with an obsessive fanboy whimsy, at least those fanboys seem to have the passion to really throw there opinions around, so Sam Raimi can easily fit the mold of a modern auteur, his "Evil Dead" series has sparked just as much copy catting as Tarantino's black suited gangsters.

There's my humble list...for now.

How has this thread come this far without a single mention of Steven Spielberg? Oh, that's right, I forgot; it's now in vogue to hate the greatest director of all time. And why is that? Because he dares to make a fourth "Indiana Jones' movie? Oh, the nerve.