Best of the Best: Best Director

[dylanfan23]

Eastwood because he was my director of the year for that and mystic river and letters...and i thought flags was pretty darn good as well....but million dollar baby is also my favorite film out of those ten so he's clearly my choice....soderbergh would have gotten my award for that year...while spielberg, mendes, howard, polanski, scorsese and the coens would have gotten nominations from me....and lee and jackson made fine films as well..overall this is pretty outstanding list as i look over it as a whole.



Edited By dylanfan23 on 1209010911

[MovieWes]

1) Martin Scorsese
2) Peter Jackson
3) Roman Polanski
4) Joel & Ethan Coen
5) Steven Soderbergh
6) Ang Lee
7) Clint Eastwood
Steven Spielberg
9) Sam Mendes
10) Ron Howard

[criddic3]

Saving Private Ryan is a modern classic, even though I gave my personal award to Peter Weir that year.

Lee and Eastwood also offered some great work.

[Hustler]

I´m sorry Sabin, I havent´t read your post, when I decided to sent mine.

[Hustler]

I'll admit that I've seen only two. But if Chinatown, which is often cited as his career cap, is an example of his style with regard to character and emotional craft (deficiencies I also saw in The Pianist), then I don't want to even bother with the rest of his work.

And I would take the Coens (and you know how I feel about them) and Scorsese's work in The Departed (uneven at best, IMO) long before I would pick Polanski's mediocre and emotionally absent The Pianist.

Now, I'll clarify that I thought Chinatown was, overall, a good film, but that lack of emotional investment in the characters does damage the film. It's a good suspense yarn, but one any number of directors from the 70s or even the gangster days of the Golden Age could have accomplished and managed to make a bit more interesting. Matter of fact, I think Orson Welles and Carol Reed would have done beautifully with the subject.

you need to see: Cul de sac, Repulsion, Knife in the water, Rosemary´s Baby.

[Damien]

Gee, I would say that Roman Polanski is one of just a handful of truly great filmmakers who have won Best Director (which made his victory all the more surprising).

Out of curiosity, Damien, who are your others?

John Ford, of course, and Leo McCarey, Frank Borzage, Vincente Minnelli, Bernardo Berolucci, Clint Eastwood, Frank Capra and, perhaps, George Cukor.

[Sabin]

Ang Lee's skill is with performance. The acting in 'Brokeback Mountain' is beautiful. My choice that year would've been Steven Spielberg for 'Munich' with Clooney close behind.

I still haven't voted yet. I don't know. It's between Polanski, Scorsese, and The Coen Brothers. Clint Eastwood's work in 'Million Dollar Baby' is beautiful but he's on better display with 'Unforgiven' and 'Letters from Iwo Jima'. Martin Scorsese clearly isn't as dedicated as he is on other projects but that doesn't make 'The Departed' any less awesome. Just in the same way that Roman Polanski is working with more conventional material than usual.

I'm going to give it to Roman Polanski if only because his win was the more surprising and sweet, but it could just as easily go to Joel & Ethan Coen or Martin Scorsese.

[FilmFan720]

Gee, I would say that Roman Polanski is one of just a handful of truly great filmmakers who have won Best Director (which made his victory all the more surprising).

Out of curiosity, Damien, who are your others?

[Damien]

Gee, I would say that Roman Polanski is one of just a handful of truly great filmmakers who have won Best Director (which made his victory all the more surprising).

[Nik]

But, when push comes to shove, Lee is the best director of this list.

I like Brokeback Mountain a lot, and Lee has always been a wonderful director, but to me his work on Brokeback is just above competent. Oh there are some nice tight shots when they return to "civilization" that neatly delineates the wildness of the outdoors as an escape from heterosexuality (this is of course a long American tradition going back to early American Literature where Puritan writers were depicting the wilderness as terrifying and arousing, and that's why Hawthorne has Pearl dancing around like a pixie in the woods in "The Scarlet Letter." Once a place for female sexuality, in Lee's film it becomes a place for homosexuality) and also helps to usher in the class conflicts between the two male leads. But other than that, Lee doesn't really do anything interesting or spectacular in terms of his direction. And the cinematography is a bore. This doesn't detract from the overall power of the film mind you (Shakespeare in Love is delightfully fun for example, despite being as blandly directed as a successful film could be) but I just don't get the acclaim for Lee here. Scorsese, Polanski and Eastwood do far more in their films. And the Oscars in 2005 should have gone to Brokeback Mountain (Best Picture) and George Clooney (Director).

[Sabin]

I'll admit that I've seen only two. But if Chinatown, which is often cited as his career cap, is an example of his style with regard to character and emotional craft (deficiencies I also saw in The Pianist), then I don't want to even bother with the rest of his work.

The thing is, it's not. Roman Polanski was journeyman-for-hire on 'Chinatown' and although some might consider that film his strongest, it's more of a film by Robert Towne (although Polanski himself altered the ending). They're very strong movies and again no offense when I say I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about, but you cannot accurately ascertain Polanski's strength as a director from those two films as they're probably his two most commercial.

Polanski is at his strongest when wallowing in the pessimistic nature of humanity, our ability to destroy ourselves before anybody else's. 'Repulsion', 'Cul-du-Sac', 'Knife in the Water', and 'Rosemary's Baby' are good starts. His work on 'Macbeth' is pretty great and I found 'The Tenant' pretty bugfuck but interesting enough.

But you're not allowed to say you've seen Polanski if all you've seen are 'The Pianist' or 'Chinatown'. You're just allowed to say you haven't appreciated him.

[OscarGuy]

Nope. I voted for Ang Lee. I thought the humanism and selflessness that he brought to Brokeback Mountain was refreshing. He creates characters that people care about. He's not just a technically proficient director, but he seems to genuinely love the people in the stories he tells. He relates to them and wants the audience to do so. He exposes love, warts and all, to the world and doesn't apologize for it. There is no modern director that has so frequently and consistently provided such a vision and with Brokeback Mountain he reached a pinnacle that few could actually match.

And I do love Peter Jackson's work on the LOTR films. I think it's an amazing achievement to blend effects, story and performance equally and create something that can resonate with everyone regardless of nationality. There's a reason this films were such huge international hits.

But, when push comes to shove, Lee is the best director of this list.

[Steph2]

Who did you vote for then OG? Please say you weren't the one vote for Jackson :p

[OscarGuy]

I'll admit that I've seen only two. But if Chinatown, which is often cited as his career cap, is an example of his style with regard to character and emotional craft (deficiencies I also saw in The Pianist), then I don't want to even bother with the rest of his work.

And I would take the Coens (and you know how I feel about them) and Scorsese's work in The Departed (uneven at best, IMO) long before I would pick Polanski's mediocre and emotionally absent The Pianist.

Now, I'll clarify that I thought Chinatown was, overall, a good film, but that lack of emotional investment in the characters does damage the film. It's a good suspense yarn, but one any number of directors from the 70s or even the gangster days of the Golden Age could have accomplished and managed to make a bit more interesting. Matter of fact, I think Orson Welles and Carol Reed would have done beautifully with the subject.



Edited By OscarGuy on 1204559210

[Bog]

Ang Lee's competent but unspectacular direction of "Brokeback" shouldn't be leading here, unless it's career recognition for "The Ice Storm", "Crouching Tiger" and "The Wedding Banquet."

I would say the exact same thing with Scorsese and Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Last Temptation subbed in, but luckily he's only got 3 votes, and I hate career recognition stuff personally.

I did say that I voted for Polanski, but I picked him because I want to think they surprised everyone and picked the best director of 2002.