My 60 Favourite Film Directors of all time.

        Hello again,

        

        To remind myself why I am starting film school this year I wanted to rate my top 60 or so Directors of all time. My list started at 130 but I managed to get it down to just over 60. I know there are many more filmmakers that deserve to be on my list but this is a start. I want to get it down to my favourite 50.  It is way to hard to rate them from 1-60 in sequential order so I have grouped them. The only directors I have put in sequential order are the tops 10. I have only managed to write about the top 4 but I want to get all the way down to number 50. But that shit takes time. Lots of it!

        Anyway I hope you enjoy it and let me know what you think.

        Cheers,

1. Stanley Kubrick

Mr. Stanley Kubrick!!… What can I say! He has been my favorite director since I was 17 years old. I really can’t explain why Kubrick is my favorite director he just is. I think it is largely due to the fact that I don’t totally understand his films and for this reason Kubrick’s work and the man himself have remained a mystery to me. When I first started my love afffrraire with cinema it was an obsession of mine to find out what made Kubrick and his films tick. I have read mountains of information on Kubrick over the years and never got closer to what he was or what cohesive concept he was exploring with his films. I just ended up with more and more questions.

There is one thing I know for sure and that is Kubrick wanted it that way. He wanted people to be confused about him and his films. How ever he did not want to be misunderstood as he was blamed for inspiring gang violence and other nasty things. There is a big difference between being misunderstood and being confusing. He wanted to challenge his audience and not insult their intelligence by being very strategic and carful with what he reveled.

Even Kubrick’s closest collaborators had very little insight into what his intentions and vision were for a film. When colleagues would ask him onset “what is this scene about?” he would either walk away or simply say, “I don’t know…” This drove a lot of the people he worked with insane and eventually ended up with a very small crew towards the end of his career, which could handle such an ambiguous approach to filmmaking.

Kubrick was a tyrant as a director as most of the great directors were and are. He would demand the highest standards from his actors and crew, demanding they sometimes do over 50 takes on a single shot. At the time it must have been hell for anyone involved in making the film but now I am sure they would all agree that it was worth it.

Kubrick was obsessive about his projects and work so much so that it could seriously be considered a mental illness by today’s standards. Because of Kubrick’s reclusive nature he would send his assistance out on the most bizarre missions to get the information he needed to plan his projects. He once sent one of his assistance out to take photographs of cracks in the sidewalks of New York City for a month in preparation for Eyes Wide Shut. Upon the assistance return to his master, Kubrick asked him to go and do it again in different lighting conditions.

During the planning of his film about Napoleon, which sadly never became a reality, he asked a researcher to get him information of Napoleons bowel movements before a battle. There are many more examples of how his obsession with detail and planning manifested itself. You could say that Kubrick’s obsessiveness has been my obsession for years now.

As far as Kubrick’s films go, sure, I can explain what they are “about” and  analyze them but he truth is I don’t (and don’t think many people really do) understand the deeper conceptual elements of his films.

These days I am happy to leave it a mystery and let Kubrick’s films wash over me while I learn and take in how mind blowing they are. You can never watch a Kubrick film enough, every time you watch one of his films it is like watching it for the first time again. There is only one thing I wish Kubrick could have done and that is his passion project, Napoleon. The Napoleon film Kubrick was working on was going to be his biggest and best film. It is a shame it never came to be.


2. Wong Kar Wai

Wong Kar Wai is the biggest inspiration I have to want to make films. Wong Kar Wai and his Australian Cinematographer and collaborator Christopher Doyle have between them created the most vibrant and moving films I have even seen. The way Wong Kar Wai mixes camera movement, music, composition and color come together beautifully to capture the inner emotional lives of his characters.

This is what drives Wong Kar Wai’s films and what I find so exciting about his films. It is my belief that plot is a mechanism that comes from literature and has very little place in cinema. A lot of Wong Kar Wai’s films have not had a script to work from through production. His approach to film making is much more interesting than using the written word to govern how a visual film will unfold and what the camera will revel.

A film such as Fallen Angels asks the question, “Can we truly connect with other people?” “Can we truly be in love?” Wong Kar Wai builds his films on these questions without hanging them on artificial easily digestible plots. Instead he follows the characters emotional and behavioral development and lets the camera, sound and photography drive the narrative. He lets the faces of his actors and the tone of the action guide the film. The result is a fractured narrative based on both simple and intense moments that somehow come together as a cohesive film. This to me is what true cinema should be about. Pushing the boundaries of what film can be and questioning the medium of film it self trying to capture something truly human.

Wong Kar Wai has become a master of visual filmmaking and knowing how this affects the audience’s senses. He makes the audience feel the narrative rather than rely on logical plot structures. Using snapshots in times and focusing on moments rather than events his films transcend being on the screen and validate humanities everyday struggles.

The themes in all his films are mainly concerned with longing for the past, urban alienation and romantic longing. I hope in years to come more films take the direction Wong Kar Wai’s films have and start to explore the more fundamental visual aspects of filmmaking to tell “stories”. Cinema is after all a visual medium not a book.

3. Paul Thomas Anderson

Paul Thomas Anderson is the best young filmmaker in my opinion alive today. He only has 5 feature films under his belt and I think we are yet to see his best work.  He very much belongs in the group of young directors that surfaced in the 90’s like Quentin Tarintino, Robert Rodriguez and David Fincher, that were inspired by all kinds of classic cinema.

These guys started a pretty big trend in film in the 90’s that still gets exploited today but comes off somewhat tired contrived. They all used intertwining plots and narratives that tied their ensemble cast’s together. We follow every character individually in the film and they all somehow end up crossing each other’s paths in the end. It was exciting and new when it first appeared in the 90’s but soon felt old and contrived when it started getting exploited by copycats that felt it was a gimmick that could be exploited for commercial success.

All the above filmmakers have moved away from that style of film to move onto more mature conceptual approaches drawing new inspirations from the likes of Ingmar Bergman and Sydney Lumet. Anyway...

P. T. Anderson’s first film, Sydney or Hard Eight was a bit of a fumble in the dark for the 25 year old Writer Director. Saying this, he still managed to get an amazing cast together and make a relatively entertaining film. P. T. Anderson made Sydney about a year after dropping out of film school, he only attended three days of film school when he decided to get his school fees refunded so he could go out and make his own film. It was a gutsy move that paid off. The best thing about making Sydney was it gave him the credibility to make his long-term passion project, Boogie Nights.

Boogie Nights was largely based on a short film he shot on video called, The Dirk Diggler Story. He made in 1988 at the age of 18. Barely old enough to watch porn let alone make a film about it he worked tirelessly on a massive sprawling script that would come to be known as, Boogie Nights. Boogie Nights was a massive hit and will go down in history as one of the best films made in the 90’s and will always be a cult classic. In boogie nights we see P. T. Anderson explore themes that would be present in his films to follow. All of P. T. Anderson’s films are full of people trying to fit into a family unit and struggle with their personal demons to achieve this.

After the massive success of Boogie Nights the pressure was on P. T. Anderson to prove his worth as a filmmaker and follow it up with a bigger and better film. At only 28 years of age he stared work on his biggest project to date. Only weeks after the premier of Boogie Nights P. T. Anderson locked him self away in a cabin for close to a year to write his most deeply personal film, Magnolia.

Magnolia turned out to be somewhat of an Apocalypse Now project, running over time, over budget, and stretching the cast and crew to breaking point. Magnolia to the surprise of many people once again was a massive hit receiving critical and box office acclaim. Magnolia is nothing short of beautiful in every sense of the word. P.T.Anderson dives straight into the heart of his characters and rubs their faces in their life’s failures, regrets and fears. Although, this is done with such a compassionate and understanding hand that you end up feeling a little closer to your fellow man.

The message of the film to me is. We are fragile, and we are all connected in a collective struggle to be happy. This is not only what the film is about it is what I have taken as my own personal philosophy. Good cinema does this. It changes you for the better.

Magnolia was released just before P. T. Anderson 30^th birthday. It is an amazing achievement to write such an emotional and complex film. After Magnolias success Mr. Anderson took some time off to hang out with his amazingly talented amazingly beautiful wife Fiona Apple. During this time he worked on a little film called Punch Drunk Love.

Punch Drunk Love was May favorite P. T. Anderson film for a very long time before I switched to Magnolia. Punch Drunk Love is the kind of Romanic comedy that actually is romantic and funny. It’s subtle, dark and doesn’t insult the audience’s intelligence. Once again like his films before the audience follows a man trying to come to grips with his own demons so he can allow himself to fall in love.

P. T. Anderson forces his protagonist to face his inadequacies and insecurity’s before he can over come them. The result is an astounding film that resonates with anyone who has been hopelessly in love and has had the maturity to understand it is not an easy road. Punch Drunk Love is full of violent conflict both external and internal, the film so perfectly captures this. There is also an examination of masculinity that P. T. Anderson seems to becoming more and more interested in. Which brings us to…

There Will Be Blood! There Will Be Blood, in my opinion is a masterpiece. We see a major shift in P. T. Andersons focus both conceptually and cinematically. There Will Be Blood is a brutal, epic examination of the rise and fall of a man at war with himself. There is so much to say about this film but what I found most interesting is Daniel Day Lewis’s character, Daniel Plainview.

Daniel is brutal in his approach of his pursuit for wealth and keeps every bit of his humanity locked away so tight it eats him alive. I find this examination of the psychology of the workingman incredibly honest and powerful. The arch of Daniel Plainview’s torment and intense loneliness resonates even today in contemporary society.

The film to me is precisely about this. The impotence and strength of men whom are raised in an environment that teaches them to repress the very essence of their humanity. There is also strength in this type of psychology and is largely what big industry has been built on. Ruthlessness, blind ambition, the destructive pursuit of wealth and superficial possessions. I hope this film one day gets the attention it deserves.

Paul T. Anderson’s films are always powerful and force us to look at what makes us tick. They make us think about our personal inherent weakness and our bittersweet pursuit to be truly understood and loved. P. T. Anderson is an emotional director that cuts to the core of our humanity. He is one of the great filmmakers of our time.

4. Hal Ashby

Good old Hal Ashby. Hal is not as famous as the other directors on this list but just as talented. Hal Ashby has been a huge inspiration for me to pursue filmmaking. Ashby had a very rough life up until his mid twenties when he started working in Hollywood. Instead of me reciting his early life I think this quote is much more affective.  

“I was born in Ogden, Utah, the last of four children. Mom and Dad divorced when I was five or six. Dad killed himself when I was 12. I struggled toward growing up, like others, totally confused. Married and divorced twice before I made it to 21. Hitchhiked to Los Angeles when I was 17. Had about 50 or 60 jobs up to the time I was working as a Multilith operator at good old Republic Studios.” – Hal Ashby

That about sums it up.

It is a shame that Ashby is still not very well know to mainstream audiences. He stood tall among the Hollywood brats of the 70’s with filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman and Steven Spielberg. Although his film did not have the budgets of the filmmakers listed above, preferring to make films on a much smaller scale they were just as popular and still ring true today. The 1975 film Shampoo (the original) was his most commercially successful film and remains a cult classic today. Other than that his films were small and packed a punch.

Hal’s first studio film Harold and Maude (1971) was his first chance to explore some of the themes he was interested in. Harold and Maude is the story of a 20 year old rich kid (Harold) obsessed with death and suicide. Felling trapped in his environment of material worship and superficiality he goes searching for something deeper. Harold meets Maude an eccentric lady in her 70’s at a funeral that they are both not invited to.

Harold and Maude then begin a friendship that exposes Harold to a life of freedom and defiance. This leads to Harold to become more comfortable with his morbid pursuits and the type of life he wants to live free from the stuffy and repressive life that his egocentric and snobbish mother has placed upon his shoulders. Harold and Maude is really a black comedy but what Ashby wants to say shines through clear as day.

The thing I love about Ashby and this film is he does not stuff around with metaphor or over complicate the film with grand visions or social commentary. He simply says, this is how I see it and I don’t care if you agree or not.

At the heart of Harold and Maude is a film about not conforming to social expectations if it is not how you want to live your life. It is about the ridiculousness of the pursuit of material possession. It is what we are that defines us not what we own.

The best Ashby film in my opinion is The Last Detail (1973) the basic outline of the story is two navy men, Bad Ass and Mule have to transport the 18 year old fellow Navy man Meadows to the Brig for stealing $40 from the charity box at the base. This simple plot gives the film so much freedom to explore the characters in depth. This is done with such a companionate and humane hand that only Ashby could pull off. The film really puts the type of, male macho musicality needed in service men of the time under the microscope. The film makes the characters look both human and sad and pathetic.

Hal Ashby really is an intellectual hippy. He has left wing political views but is smart enough to know that there are a lot of things to take into consideration when dealing with complex political and social issues. It is Ashby’s ability to balance the social and political issues his film’s are about with the humanity of the people caught up in them that makes him such a powerful filmmaker. His message seems to be pretty clear throughout all his films and heavily influenced by 60’s and 70’s counter culture. Love is the answer.

Frederico Fellini

5. Martin Scorsese*


6. Michelangelo Antonioni*


7. Federico Fellini*


8. Akira Kurosawa


9. Orson Welles*


10. Francis Ford Coppola


From 10 - 20 in no particular order.

Lars Von Trier

Gus Van Sant*
Jean-Luc Godard
francois truffaut
Lars Von Trier
Ken Loach
John Cassavetes
Ingmar Bergman
Alfred Hitchcock
Werner Herzog
Christopher Nolan*


From 20 - 35 in no particular order.


Sidney Lumet
Clint Eastwood
Sam Peckinpah

Michael Winterbottom

Sidney Lumet

Spike Jonze

Vittorio De Sica

Roberto Rossellini

Luchino Visconti

Pedro Almodovar

Sergio Leone
Tim Burton
Andrei Tarkovsky

David Fincher

Darren Aronofsky

From 35 - 45 in no particular order.

Sophia Coppola
Jim Jarmusch

Errol Morris

Errol Morris

Todd Haynes

Joel and Ethan Coen
Charles Chaplin
John Huston

Peter Greenaway

Oliver Stone

David Lynch

From 45 - 50 in no particular order.

Justin Kurzel

Steven Spielberg

Terry Gilliam

Roman Polanski

Brian De Palma

Justin Kurzel

From 50 - 63 in no particular order

Wes Anderson
Mike Leigh

Jane Campion

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Rolf De Heer





Peter Weir
Quentin Tarantino
Woody Allen




Michael Moore




Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Baz Luhrman
Jean Renoir
David Michod
Kate Shortland



Snowtown Film Review (well.. kind of)

Every year it seems I watch an Australian film that blows me away. Last year it was Animal Kingdom, before that was Noise and few years before that was Somersault and this year it is Snowtown. Along with these films and many other Australian films that have been released in recent years, there seems to be a strong move toward exploring the darker parts of the Australian psyche. There is always going to be films that explore the darker aspects in life, while some do it poorly and others do it so well,  it can have a very strong and lasting affect on us and profoundly give us insight into ourselves and the world we live in.

Snowtown is nothing short of astounding, and such an amazing achievement for the film makers involved and the Australian film industry as a whole. It is a very sad that Australian films of this calibre, will not now, of in the near future been taken that seriously by international audiences. International audiences want to see us as cartoon characters, chasing kangaroos and dingos. While we also like seeing ourselves this way from time to time given our ability to take the piss of ourselves and our self deprecating nature, it’s a shame the rest of the world don’t see us for the multi layered complex people we are.

But that’s their problem not ours, I’d rather fight a crocodile than watch that overtly French, Diving Butterfly And A Bell film, or whatever it was called. What they should have named it is Over Rated Wank Fest. Oh, look at us, we are French, we can make pretty pictures and all our characters are bewildered all the time because they are interested in small poetic things in life and talk about nothing interesting just chases each other around rooms all day long. Oh, and don’t forget we are still milking the fact Godard and Truffaut where French, even though they very unfashionably liked bad American films and thought the French film industry was stuffy and bourgeois.

Anyway… lost myself a bit there… enough with the fashionable wanky over rated French film industry. On to a real film. Snowtown!

Godard and Truffaut are geniuses though.

Snowtown is director and writer, Justin Kurzel's first feature film, and my word! did he rise to the occasion and the challenges he was presented with. Based on the screenplay written by Shaun Grant, Snowtown follows teenager Jamie Vlassakis through his experience and involvement with the Snowtown murders otherwise known as the “bodies in the barrels” incident that occurred throughout the 90s in Western Australian. Jamie then meets John Bunting who is considered the worst, and probably one of the only serial killers in Australian history. Jamie whom is desperate for guidance looks up to the charismatic Bunting and subsequently becomes a father figure in his life. There are a number of other key characters in the film that are just as interesting as these two but, the dynamic between these two men are really what drive the narrative and what interests me.

Snowtown’s opening sequence; a vast beautiful foreboding landscape shot with Jamie retelling a reoccurring nightmare sets the tone of the film perfectly. We are then introduced to the family and community in such a clever, subtle and interesting way we don’t even realise Justin Kurzel is inserting the perfect characterisation that will make the audience believe what they are about to experience. We see Jamie sexually exploited by his mothers boyfriend and then sexually assaulted by his brother in such a passive and normalised way it is deeply disturbing and you can’t help but be angry at what is inflicted on Jamie. Then very abruptly enters John Bunting. Over a very bustling breakfast table we start to see why the family and particularly Jamie come to see John as their knight in shining armour.

The community feels powerless to what is happening to their children in their community. John gets the trust and respect from the family and community by passionately talking about punishing the people that commit these acts against their children because no one else will help them. Through the bustling kitchen scenes throughout the film we are able to see the venerability, fragility and desperation of the community and Jamie. John’s charisma wins over everyone he comes in contact with which allows him to manipulate them with his warped code of conduct and values that make sense to the community.

Snowtown has been criticised for trying to be compassionate to the killers. I would argue that the film makers are trying to take a step back and passively exhibit the development of the characters psychology through an objective view point. This affect is very powerful because it leads to a much deeper examination and understanding of the minds of the people involved and what lead them to commit the murders.

Because the film makers have done such a good job of pulling this passive objectivity off while still making the film engaging to watch. We develop a deep understanding of the communities and Jamie’s venerability. The central element of Snowtown is just this. The film is about the dangers that lye in communities like Snowtown that feel so isolated and ignored. The future is bleak for communities like this, and if someone or something comes along they can believe in, they will cling to it in desperation no matter what the end result is. Sadly this is what also happens to Jamie. Wouldn’t you? If you lived Jamie’s life, want to cling to something you could trust and reliey on even if you thought it was bad. Or even worse, if you had no real moral compass of what is bad, because no one ever taught you? This but no means excuses the murders, but maybe it explains how something like this could unfold. This is what I think is so powerful and exciting about Snowtown.

Snowtown has been slammed by a lot of critics for its so called, excessive violence and morbid nature. It is my opinion that Snowtown is a largely misunderstood film and these critics tend rather immaturely to dwell on the horror they are seeing in its physical form rather than seeing the more concerning darker aspects that motivate and lead to this violence. As someone who finished at the bottom of the class for just about every subject at school, except Drama and Sport. I have a particular intolerance for film critics and academics who lack the intelligence to look deeper to try and understand what is really going on in films like these. I am not sure why someone would be that shocked and disgusted to see violence in a film, in which the worst serial killer Australia has ever know is a central figure. There is nothing at all in this film that has not been carefully considered and respectfully though through. So concerned and respectful were the film makers  that they hired a large portion of the cast from the local community, and had very long consultations with the Snowtown community about how they felt about making a film of this nature.

My only small complaint is that that the relationship between John and Jamie very quickly jumps from stranger to accomplice without much development done. But at the end of the day the rest of the film is so well made and constructed you won’t even notice it.

In lesser hands this film could have been a disaster, but through the respectful eyes of Justin Kurzel and Shaun Grant whom grew up in a town 15 minutes from Snowtown we end up with a film that is multi layered that tells us something about humanity, desperation and isolated communities. It speaks directly to the darkest parts of the human psyche that are unique to being Australian and we need artists with enough courage like the people that worked on Snowtown to confront us and make us think.

It’s no secret I love this film.

I give it 8.3/10


Simon Direen.