Joe Karlosi

I don't always think they are, though there are exceptions (Hitchcock, Welles, Kubrick...)

Many film fans tend to refer to a film as the directors' own baby with regard to virtually ANY movie. For example, they'll say: "Franklin Schaffner's PLANET OF THE APES," or "Roy William Neill's SHERLOCK HOLMES IN WASHINGTON". But just how much has to do with the director?

To me, it's always seemed that the only real way a director would have such a complete claim on the movie is when he is director, writer, and editor combined. Sure, directors put their own individual "stamp" on a project, but is JAWS (for instance) totally Spielberg's creation when he didn't write it, and when Verna Fields was the editor (presuming Spielberg was not present consistently through every phase of the editing process)? And would it have been as effective if, say, Robert Redford had played Quint instead of Robert Shaw - even though Spielberg was still the man doing the directing?

It just seems that if a director was the sole person truly responsible for the entire appeal (or unappeal) of a given film, then his results would have to remain the same from film to film. In other words, I love "DePalma's" DRESSED TO KILL and also CARLITO'S WAY .... but yet I have no use for "his" PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE! If I "loved Brian DePalma films," wouldn't PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE have to appeal to me too?

I'm of the belief that it's usually a whole combination of factors -- the script, the actors, the subject matter...

Rob Gardiner

In the world of literature, the author of a novel is considered the "sole author" of the work (yes, I realize editors have a tremendous influence) but not every novel by an author is of the same quality, right?

To answer your original question, I bring up Ron Howard. He has got to be one of the blandest "non-directors" in the business.

chris winters

another good example is the bland "non-directors" of the James Bond installments. It really matters little who is behind the camera on Bond, the producers and other folks behind the scenes hold the true power of the production. This is more akin to television, where the producer of a show weilds the power, and various episodic directors helm each episode. Chris Columbus is a bit of a non-director as well.

Movies are like books, except you can\'t set your\' drink on them, well.. unless its a DVD...oh nevermind

Colin Jacobson

Absolutely not. If you like two Steven King books, will you like them all? If you like two Bowie albums, will you like them all? Of course not. And in both of those instances, the main artist has a lot more control over the final product than a director - takes a lot more people to make a movie than to write/edit a book or record a rock album.

Really, it's an odd train of thought that because you generally like a director/writer/whatever, then you must like everything they do...

Colin Jacobson
http://www.DVDMG.com

Ray H

Don't know if this is what you're asking but since others have posted in the same manner, I find Michael Curtiz's directing to be pretty bland. There's nothing present in his films that say "this was made by Michael Curtiz!" In fact, it's pretty hard to tell just by looking at a film that he directed it. It's hard to believe that the same guy that directed Casablanca made the Adventures of Robin Hood or Yankee Doodle Dandy. Great films, but all radically different.

Anyway to answer what I think you're asking, just because a director has entire control of a film doesn't mean his films will stay at a certain qaulity. Woody Allen directs and writes his own films and they vary in quality from briliant to not so much.

Jan H

The great directors all seem to have certain thematic and/or cinematographic threads that underpin their work, regardless of the genre of film they work in.

Lang, Kubrick, Renoir, Ozu, Bunuel, Welles, Hitchcock, Dreyer, Mizoguchi, Ford, Wilder, Fellini, Godard, etc., all made films that could be readily identified as -esque, and most would agree that these directors are among the 'greatest.' Did they make films that didn't work? Yes, but they were always distinctive.

Ernest Rister

To me, it's always seemed that the only real way a director would have such a complete claim on the movie is when he is director, writer, and editor combined. Sure, directors put their own individual "stamp" on a project, but is JAWS (for instance) totally Spielberg's creation when he didn't write it, and when Verna Fields was the editor (presuming Spielberg was not present consistently through every phase of the editing process)? And would it have been as effective if, say, Robert Redford had played Quint instead of Robert Shaw - even though Spielberg was still the man doing the directing?

Joe - have you been reading William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade? He made the exact same argument using the exact same movie, and threw in DP Bill Butler and composer John Williams to boot.

I had a discussion on this very same subject with Allison Anders back around 1995 or so, and I'll pass on the knowledge she sent my way because I was also of your opinion that because of the auteur theory, directors were given complete credit for the contributions of others. She told me that there are indeed directors who rely heavily on the contributions of others, and she even quoted a certain recently annoited Best Director Oscar winner who said that he didn't need to worry about the whole "vision thing - that's what art directors are for" -- but she vehemently disagreed with this notion because by and large, all directors are ultimately responsible for everything that makes it to the screen, including the contributions of the DP, the actors' choices, the set design, the music, etc. The idea that a director just shows up and marshalls a good team and then waltzes to the finish line -- this is simply wrong.

Let's take Goldman's famous comments on Steven Spielberg claiming authorship of Jaws as an example. If anyone doubts his controlling aesthetic over that film, all one needs to do is watch three films in succession...Duel, The Sugarland Express, and Jaws. Three Universal films, yes. But by and large, these are three films shot by three completely different crews, and yet they are so strikingly similar in shot composition, editing, character work, and even (dare I say it?) world view, that there is no doubt that all three were coordinated by the same guiding hand.

Are all directors distinctive? Let's take a counterpoint example...my favorite director, my choice for the best American director working today -- is Clint Eastwood. Here is a true actor's director, a professional who disappears within his work. The identifying trademark of all of Eastwood's film is the absolute invisibility of the director, and yet the passion is there behind every shot, every frame. Rather than make a film that is essentially a film about the director and the director's point of view, Eastwood tells stories and disappears within the narrative and allows the ebb and flow of the acted moment to dictate his camera work. Is he an "auteur"? You bet. Is he a showy "look ma!" director who uses his story as an excuse to showboat and make sure everyone knows his films were directed by the great Clint Eastwood? Absolutely not. You won't see camera moves in an Eastwood film where he trucks his camera through the inner workings of a toaster, like David Fincher in Panic Room. You won't see camera moves like the shot in Spielberg's Always where Spielberg uses the image of a plane landing through one window to motivate a pan to another window as characters move about and live their lives almost as a secondary issue to the true interest of the filmmaker.

Is Eastwood distinctive?

His taste is absolutely distinctive.

His ability to serve his story rather than showboat his control over the camera is distinctive.

No toaster shots in Unforgiven, A Perfect World, The Bridges of Madison County, Mystic River or Million Dollar Baby. Just shots of great human drama, shots controlled by a master storyteller not afraid of letting the work speak for itself. No shots where the primary purpose is to glorify the person who directed them.

Jan H

I agree that Eastwood is a great director whose tasteful restraint is a breath of fresh air in this world of MTV-Bruckheimer-Baz Luhrman jump-cuts. But I wouldn't say that Eastwood disappears in his films. In his best work (and I personally wouldn't include Bridges of Madison County), his thematic thread is exploring the degree to which violence eats away at the human soul. I think it's very safe to include Eastwood as one of the 'auteurs.'

Ernest Rister

I'm not sure you understood my post -- I absolutely belive Eastwood is an "auteur", and his choice of subject matter is very personal -- themes of self-destruction are evident in most of his movies (Bird, White Hunter, Black Heart, Unforgiven, A Perfect World, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and Mystic River) as are odes to intimacy and an ache for human contact (Bridges of Madison County, Play Misty For Me, Bronco Billy, Honkytonk Man).

The theme of violence as a caustic self-destructive force even when it serves as an ironic agent to restore justice is a dichotomy in many of his films - see The Outlaw Josey Wales, Pale Rider and again, Bronco Billy, Unforgiven and Mystic River.

Eastwood is attracted to certain themes, of this there is no doubt, but his approach to TELLING these stories aims for an invisible restraint where the director's wish to grandstand and show himself off is secondary to the the storytelling and the actors playing the characters in that story.

My senior year in college, I was making my third student film (an update on the narcissus myth), and my DP said that we needed to do more shots that would, in hs words, "show you off". Such a thing never ocurred to me, that I needed to stage shots to show off my guiding hand as the director. The final work should speak for itself.

Some days I think that, for all the enormous good Citizen Kane has done for cinema, there are instances where it has poisoned the water somewhat. Some filmmakers are being raised to make films about the act of making a film, where every shot is a self-referential tribute to the person who is directing the film. Eastwood is the Anti-Christ of such dogma, and I love him all the more for it.

Joe Karlosi

That's precisely what I'm saying.
Which is why a film is rarely a "director's baby". It's usually the result of many different people and contributors.


Yes, they DO all vary in quality. That's my whole point. My opening post stems from discussions I've had in the past with fans who believe that it's the director who's almost solely responsible for the final result of a film. I say it's the editors too, the script writer, the actors, the soundtrack, and a whole other plethora of factors - which is why every film by any one director can never all be the same in quality.There is much more to account for their appeal than merely who the director is.

Joe Karlosi

No, I never even heard of this! But it's great to know that I'm in good company