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March 28, 2024, 02:07:23 PM

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Who is the greatest living filmmaker?

Started by Monsieur Verdoux, June 27, 2017, 02:35:16 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

shh

Michael Haneke, surely. The only living filmmaker to bear comparison with the old masters: Tarkovsky, Bergman, Bresson, Antonioni...

Quote from: hewantstolurkatad on June 27, 2017, 11:35:42 PM
So people who have been consistently good and don't really show signs that they'll go to the dogs??

Here are some names that haven't been mentioned:
Frederick Wiseman
Bela Tarr (retired)
Hirokazu Koreeda
Hayoa Miyazaki (retired?)
Lee Chang Dong
Andrey Zvyagintsev
Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Mike Leigh
Steven Soderbergh (more a quantity*quality case here rather than pure quality, also retired?)
Charlie Kaufman

Wes Anderson?

newbridge

Quote from: Dr Syntax Head on June 27, 2017, 07:12:44 PM
That film makes me cry at the Fiona Apple song around the part with the falling frogs every time.

[tag]Aimee Mann leaves thread disappointed[/tag]


Quote from: Smeraldina Rima on June 28, 2017, 12:29:24 AM
Dardenne brothers

Yes! Good shout. Still at the top of their fucking game, those lads.

Osmium

It's a toss-up between Hou Hsiao-hsien and Nick Love.

Sin Agog

Quote from: hewantstolurkatad on June 27, 2017, 11:35:42 PM

Here are some names that haven't been mentioned:
Frederick Wiseman

Great call, man.  I sometimes forget what a talent that dude is.  I know Herzog used to rant about how he thought cinema verite was the truth of accountants (whilst citing Forest of Bliss as one of his favourite movies), and I think he may have specifically been alluding to Wiseman's stuff, but fuck that gifted fuck as Wiseman's made so many movies that have just mesmerised me.  It has to be more than just verite, more than just raw footage, as there's something about the people he films, the pulsing of their temples, the arching of an eyebrow, that can keep me rapt for...well, something like eight hours in the case of Near Death (which makes Louis Theroux's similar documentary look like a postcard).  He also seems to be someone who's kept at the top of his game long into his career.  I'd definitely put him up there.

Sin Agog

Quote from: Osmium on June 28, 2017, 01:18:07 AM
Nick Love.

I remember watching Outlaw in the cinema.  I totally called the rise of a UKIP-style party when at least a third of the audience stood up and started clapping to one of Sean Bean's speeches containing this line: "Get Aids or jump on a bus with a rucksack full of explosives, the government will dish you out a free car these days."

hewantstolurkatad

Quote from: Delete Delete Delete on June 28, 2017, 12:13:46 AM
Wes Anderson?
I assumed he'd've been mentioned already and I missed it tbh.

Dardennes is a great suggestion though

Quote from: Sin Agog on June 28, 2017, 01:27:29 AMIt has to be more than just verite, more than just raw footage, as there's something about the people he films, the pulsing of their temples, the arching of an eyebrow, that can keep me rapt for
Haven't gotten to Near Death (is there a decent copy of it available?)

Wiseman's a pretty masterful editor who approaches documentaries in a way that seemingly no one else is either allowed to or capable of doing. I'd be stunned if I found out he had the slightest clue how long a film would be after shooting it. I can't see how he sways away from verite, unless just the fact that he is a good editor and able to segue various strands together so well is somehow a cheat; I think once you're not tied down to theatrical runtimes (where it becomes a bit of an issue of squeezing in everyone's viewpoint), verite becomes an awful lot less contrived in general though.

zomgmouse

I mean if we're going quantity over quality not many can really top Takashi Miike. Puts out something like seventy-eight films a month. Woody Allen is definitely a churner as well. I now am reminded for obvious reasons of Roman Polanski. Both Allen and Polanski are pretty awkward to talk about but there's little doubting their cinematic successes.

Quote from: hewantstolurkatad on June 27, 2017, 11:35:42 PM

Here are some names that haven't been mentioned:

Mike Leigh


I had him in my post above but he's definitely worth mentioning twice. An absolute master at what he does, and has just been fine-tuning with age.

BlodwynPig

I think with my fifth instalment of the Minotaur series and The forthcoming long-form Hobo, you'll be adding a familiar trotter to all these lists

amoral

This would've bee much easier to answer a year ago, but then Abbas Kiarostami died. There are many greats now but he was the only one I'd comfortably call the greatest.         

zomgmouse

Quote from: BlodwynPig on June 28, 2017, 03:39:24 AM
I think with my fifth instalment of the Minotaur series and The forthcoming long-form Hobo, you'll be adding a familiar trotter to all these lists

Can you hurry the fuck up and stop joking about these and actually complete at least one of them? Fuck's sake.

steveh

Quote from: Dr Syntax Head on June 27, 2017, 07:09:07 PM
It's David Lynch you bunch of idiots

He's announced he's not doing any more feature films though.


hewantstolurkatad

I'd take any director announcing their retirement with a grain of salt anyway. All it takes is one idea to catch their interest and they'll backtrack in seconds.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: hewantstolurkatad on June 28, 2017, 09:48:46 AM
I'd take any director announcing their retirement with a grain of salt anyway. All it takes is one idea to catch their interest and they'll backtrack in seconds.

All it took for Loach was the Tories to get back in power.

hewantstolurkatad

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on June 28, 2017, 10:34:37 AM
All it took for Loach was the Tories to get back in power.
Hah! Did Ken Loach actually announce his retirement at some point? He's the exact kind of dude who'll be making films on his deathbed.

Glebe


Brundle-Fly

Quote from: zomgmouse on June 28, 2017, 03:36:45 AM
Woody Allen


He's made more than enough superb films to put him up there with the greats, irrespective of what people have thought about him and his films in the past twenty five years.

And good call on Jan Svankmajer, Sin Agog.


As we had Cronenberg and Corman, I'm also going to throw in George A Romero, Dario Argento, Sam Raimi, John Carpenter for their work in the horror/ fantasy field

Bad Ambassador

David Fincher
Christopher Nolan
Alfonso Cuaron
Clint Eastwood

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: hewantstolurkatad on June 28, 2017, 10:41:26 AM
Hah! Did Ken Loach actually announce his retirement at some point? He's the exact kind of dude who'll be making films on his deathbed.

Yeah, he announced it in 2014 after Jimmy's Hall then announced he'd restarted about 18 months later when the Tories won the 2015 general election.

Source - Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach.


thenoise

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on June 28, 2017, 11:20:03 AMGeorge A Romero, Dario Argento

Nothing but stinkers for years!

I haven't seen any Godard made in the last 20 years either, anything worth checking out?

Kane Jones

Hal Needham
Mark L. Lester
Dwight H. Little

thenoise

You may have assumed CAB favourite Richard Driscoll, jailed for 3 years in 2013 for financing his terrible horror musical 'Eldorado' (starring Rick Mayall as a deranged chef, and several lead roles being played by famous lookalikes) with millions of pounds worth of tax fraud, would never make another film.  Especially after his ramshackle Cornish farmhouse cum film studio was sold off.  Not so!  He is back and working on a new terrible rip off project: Blade Hunter
'Do androids dream of murder', he muses, while namedropping Philip K Dick and anyone else he can think of to try and drum up interest in his shitty project.  As you can see, there is still a slight issue with funding, but he probably has a few tricks up his sleeve.  After all it is '60% done'!  There was also a website advertising a crap Suicide Squad rip-off called 'Kamikaze Squad', but I can't find it right now.  Anyway, that will definitely happen too I'm sure.

I expect he will continue to repackage his old films under different titles to pretend he is producing new films, and/or pad out his unfinished projects with bits of his old films and/or cheaply shot rip offs of whatever is popular this year (or ten years ago), while avoiding paying anyone who worked on his films unless they are famous.

Maybe not the best living director but he if definitely one of the greatest.

Quote from: thenoise on June 28, 2017, 02:22:52 PM
I haven't seen any Godard made in the last 20 years either, anything worth checking out?

Eloge de l'amour is pretty great, and probably the one to check out if you're curious. The three feature films that follow that one are all characteristic of his late style, damn near impenetrable montages of images and sounds that appear free-associated at first and only begin to make some small amount of sense upon multiple viewings. They're uninviting by design, so best to just dip your toes in and see what you think. His last 20 years have been a pretty good, rewarding patch of work though, unlike the early 90's where he made a bunch of half-arsed stuff and killed off much of the audience goodwill towards his work.

Peru

Quote from: Delete Delete Delete on June 27, 2017, 07:18:32 PM
Its Roger Corman, not only for his huge body of work, but the influence he has on others, and he did it all on super tight budgets and almost always made a profit. Also has made films in most genres including, Creatue Features, Westons, Biker movies, Gangster Movies, Drug Movies, Edgar Allen Poe adaptations, Car Chase movies. Credited with directing 55 movies and producing 385 offcially. Still prodcuing b-movies for Sy-Fi at the age of 91. Directed his first movie in 1955.

But he's not a good director. Influential yes-great no.

Howj Begg


SteveDave