Directors how discriminating are you? (1 Viewer)

[george kaplan]

All of these director polls has gotten me thinking.

I'm not talking about 'discriminating' in the sense of 'having superior taste in film', rather just in a purely statistical sense. It's hard to describe adequately what I mean, but essentially I find that, even amongst my favorite directors, the ones that I admire the most, there's still a large amount of their work that I don't like. In other words, as much as I love Hitchcock, I still am fairly discriminating with his films, and there are a number that I don't like.

I could be off base here, but I get the impression that most other HTFers are less discriminating in this statistical sense, with the directors they love and respect the most. And so I just thought I'd do a poll to see if my suspicions bear out.

I don't really have a top 10 list of directors, but these would be strong candidates for such a list, and I've included the % of their films that I've seen that I like.

Alfred Hitchcock 79%
Billy Wilder 65%
Orson Welles 29%
Charlie Chaplin 46%
Stanley Kubrick 55%
Steven Spielberg 65%
Woody Allen 36%
Robert Zemeckis 75%
Howard Hawks 56%
Michael Curtiz 55%
Frank Capra 56%
John Huston 42%
Fritz Lang 67%
Preston Sturges 63%
Ernest Lubitsch 67%
George Roy Hill 43%

There are certainly a few directors with higher percentages, but they either haven't made many films (e.g., John Lassiter), or I haven't seen many of their films.

Anyway, I'd be curious as to whether or not most people have higher or lower like percentages of their favorite directors.

And if you're confused about where to draw the 'like' threshold, I'm including any film that I'd ever want to see again by that director. Which means that 21% of the films made by my top director, Hitchcock, I never want to see again.

 

[Brook K]

I would have to say I'm much less discriminating. Using the "like"/want to see it again" criteria rather than a "love it/great" criteria, I would have a lot of 100%'s

In the interest of time, space & readability, I'll just stop at 15

Stanley Kubrick - 100%
Akira Kurosawa - 100%
Rainer Werner Fassbinder - 100% (though this contains one film I found so-so but want to watch again to give it another chance "Gods of the Plague" and one film I initially thought was poor but have thought about a lot, decided I like it and would like to see again "Querelle".)

Ingmar Bergman - 100%
Preston Sturges - 100%
F.W. Murnau - 100%
Coen Bros. - 100%
Werner Herzog - 100%
Powell & Pressburger - 100%
Paul Thomas Anderson - 100%
Eric Rohmer - 100%
Yasujiro Ozu - 100%
Neil LaBute - 100%
Roberto Rosselini - 100%
Carl Theo Dreyer - 100%

These are just those who came to my mind the fastest that I could give 100% to, after I quickly decided that adding up the films I'd seen and then figuring out a percentage was too much work.

 

[Adam_S]

I'm not sure where to place myself, I think I'm sort of in both positions depending on how I might approach it. For modern film, I'll watch just about anything and try my best not to attempt to dismiss things out of hand (the only modern genres I dismiss with disinterest are independent films [only the ones that are just about adultury, sex, and/or affairs as some main part of the film, it is the most predictable of all genres] and schlock-horror). In fact I get annoyed when people are very discriminating on modern film (oh it has 'kids in it?' said with a sneer; oh it's a Disney movie same sneer; oh it's a science fiction movie sneer again; oh it's a hollywood etc) Likewise I'll watch just about anything older, but to guide me through the tens of thousands of movies available to me on a daily basis I've been using 'best' lists, so that makes most of my older viewings more discriminating in a way.

But I tend to be fairly discriminating in my thoughts on ranking/reviewing/rating films. I don't just toss out a four star rating to something that worked for the moment, I put a good deal of thought into why I liked or didnt' like it, and it's always a difficult internal debate if something is tottering on the edge of a rating whether to go up or down, three recent examples come to mind, Layer Cake, Tale of Two Cities and 9 to 5, Do these really merit four stars? They all have some minor flaws, but overall they are outstanding films I would GLADLY watch again, and when I start thinking of all their positives they often outweigh the negatives. Sometimes just writing out a short review can help clarify that, sometimes it only muddles it further. But I think considering a film like this makes one more discriminating to what one will like.

I guess I'm saying I'm probably a little more discriminating than brook (if it's an arty S and S film and I didn't like it the first go, I'm not going to waste my time on a second, ie - La Avventura, I have very little time to waste on pretentiousness) but perhaps less so than George.