You only get to watch the creations of 5 directors…. Deserted island (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

It'll give me a lot of content to watch as I'm living out my Gilligan's Island existence.

Yeah, maybe I put too much into a hypothetical scenario but my mind always goes to how I'd need to choose someone who has made a lot of movies or TV shows or music or whatever so I could fill the time.

 

[Rodney]

This is a tough one. In no particular order:

1. Howard Hawks
2. Anthony Mann
3. Mitchell Leisen
4. Buster Keaton
5. Yasujirō Ozu

And then I kept moving these names in and out of the five:

• Frank Capra
• John Ford
• Michael Curtiz
• Norman Tokar

 

[RMajidi]

Fred Zinnemann [surprised he’s not been on anyone’s list yet]
Frank Capra
William Wyler
The Archers
David Lean

[Of course, I don’t believe in this Kobayashi Maru scenario and would cheat it like Kirk and smuggle all my other many faves along]

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

My 5 favourite directors are all dead except for the first on my list.
JANE CAMPION
FEDERICO FELLINI
LUCHINO VISCONTI
BERNARDO BERTOLUCCI
HENRI GEORGES CLOUZOT

Most of other readers lists are all or mostly American. There are no American directors still living that impress me but I would include a few Americans (all dead) if the list was ten rather than 5 -such as Howard Hawks, Stanley Kramer,Elia Kazan and Alfred Hitchcock.

It's a great list. The reason I did not list any of those directors is I don't watch their films over and over again. I mean I have seen films by them multiple times but I don't pull those out every year or more. That's not because I don't think their work is great, I do, but I typically watch a variety of directors when I am in the mood for them. The directors I did list played a part in how I think about film. Since my primary language is English, born in the United States, the pictures that I primarily grew up with were made in English. So, those films had a huge impact on me and helped form how I think about film.

I would say the most influential time of filmmaking on me was the 1970s. The interesting thing about that is that the films I was falling in love with were heavily influenced by European filmmakers. All of those New Hollywood directors of the 1970s were deeply in love with European filmmakers. So, I have sort of a natural affinity for those filmmakers as well because of that. Funny thing is too, those European directors were influenced by Hollywood directors that had come before them.

I really came to those filmmakers after seeing loads of English language films though. So, in that way they were kind of a second wave for me because the first wave that washed over me was primarily English language films. So, I am not sure but I suspect that changes a bit how I see those pictures.

I saw foreign films in the 1970s. I watched Bergman films as a child. The Magician was the first, then The Seventh Seal. Odd thing was, I loved those as a child. I say that is odd because I think it is hard to picture a child now, in this country anyway, watching a Bergman film for more than 10 seconds before turning it off, never mind loving it. Our brains were trained a bit differently though back then because things were not available to us at the push of a button. We watched what was available when it was available. So, I think we were more interested and tolerant of vastly different kinds of films.

Now kids can watch only what they like and through algorithms find other content just like what they like and so never have to sit through a Bergman film because that is all that is on. In some ways the algorithm has eaten people's taste in pictures because now they never really have to venture out into what is outside that box. I think this is part of why they basically keep making these same films over and over.

I probably mention foreign films less than I should but I don't even think many people remain interested in older English language films now as "film culture" is kind of dead or at best on life support.

I mean, this thread is about directors, which was how I basically learned to follow film, but now most people don't care about or can even name more than a few directors. None of the foreign directors you listed have much impact now outside of film fanatics in the US. There are probably only a tiny handful of people in the US that might ever even say "Hey, let's watch a Fellini film tonight!"

Film school students perhaps. In places like this where we are all likely big fans we can name and recognize directors but in truth, it is no longer a factor in what people go to see. I was looking at movie showtimes today and most of the screens (sometimes 50% of the screens) in the multiplexes were all dedicated to Dr. Strange. Then most of the others were taken up by a Fantastic Beasts film, Sonic the Hedgehog, an animated film called The Bad Guys, and a Downton Abbey picture. Really, all pictures where nobody cares who is directing them.

No offense to anybody that likes these pictures but they are much more product than art. They are assembled to meet a formula, to fit a franchise, and match an algorithm. If this is what is on a majority of the cinema screens out there...well...this is what becomes thought of as cinema.

Truth is people are not watching them for the art, they are watching them as episodes in a series. Cinema has become more like episodic TV and TV is now where you would go to see people pushing more toward art.

 

[Virgoan]

Hitchcock
Minnelli
Fellini
Lean
Capra

 

[Alan_H]

Francis Ford Coppola
Werner Herzog
Stanley Kubrick
David Lynch
Steven Spielberg

 

[bogies4]

Stanley Kubrick
Steven Speilberg
Christopher Nolan
James Cameron ( Excluding Avatar)
Quinten Tarantino

 

[jayembee]

This hurts, but I'll try for a little variety...

John Ford
Stanley Kubrick
Zhang Yi-Mou
David Lean
and
Preston Sturges (for comic relief)

This makes me think of Stephen Colbert's "The Colbert Questionert", where he asks the people taking it 15 questions, one of which is "You can only listen to one song for the rest of your life; what is it?"