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Directors Criticisms and Praise About Other Directors

Started by MortSahlFan, May 31, 2020, 02:40:59 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

MortSahlFan

1. Francois Truffaut on Michelangelo Antonioni:
"Antonioni is the only important director I have nothing good to say about. He bores me; he's so solemn and humorless."

2. Ingmar Bergman on Michelangelo Antonioni:
"Fellini, Kurosawa, and Bunuel move in the same field as Tarkovsky. Antonioni was on his way, but expired, suffocated by his own tediousness."
"He's done two masterpieces, you don't have to bother with the rest. One is Blow-Up (1966), which I've seen many times, and the other is La Notte (1961), also a wonderful film, although that's mostly because of the young Jeanne Moreau. In my collection I have a copy of Il Grido (1957) and damn what a boring movie it is. So devilishly sad, I mean. You know, Antonioni never really learned the trade. He concentrated on single images, never realizing that film is a rhythmic flow of images, a movement. Sure, there are brilliant moments in his films. But I don't feel anything for L'Avventura (1960), for example. Only indifference. I never understood why Antonioni was so incredibly applauded. And I thought his muse Monica Vitti was a terrible actress."

3. Ingmar Berman on Orson Welles:
"For me he's just a hoax. It's empty. It's not interesting. It's dead.Citizen Kane, which I have a copy of — is all the critics' darling, always at the top of every poll taken, but I think it's a total bore. Above all, the performances are worthless. The amount of respect that movie's got is absolutely unbelievable."
"I've never liked Welles as an actor, because he's not really an actor. In Hollywood you have two categories, you talk about actors and personalities. Welles was an enormous personality, but when he plays Othello, everything goes down the drain, you see, that's when he croaks. In my eyes he's an infinitely overrated filmmaker"

4. Ingmar Bergman on Jean-Luc Godard:
"I've never gotten anything out of his movies. They have felt constructed, faux intellectual, and completely dead. Cinematographically uninteresting and infinitely boring. Godard is a fucking bore. He's made his films for the critics. One of the movies,Masculin, Féminin, was shot here in Sweden. It was mind-numbingly boring."

5. Orson Welles on Jean-Luc Godard:
"His gifts as a director are enormous. I just can't take him very seriously as a thinker — and that's where we seem to differ, because he does. His message is what he cares about these days, and, like most movie messages, it could be written on the head of a pin."

6. Werner Herzog on Jean-Luc Godard:

"Someone like Jean-Luc Godard is for me intellectual counterfeit money when compared to a good kung-fu film."

7. Jean-Luc Godard on Quentin Tarantino:
"Tarantino named his production company after one of my films. He'd have done better to give me some money."

8. Harmony Korine on Quentin Tarantino:
"Quentin Tarantino seems to be too concerned with other films. I mean, about appropriating other movies, like in a blender. I think it's, like, really funny at the time I'm seeing it, but then, I don't know, there's a void there. Some of the references are flat, just pop culture."

9. Nick Broomfield on Quentin Tarantino:
"It's like watching a schoolboy's fantasy of violence and sex, which normally Quentin Tarantino would be wanking alone to in his bedroom while this mother is making his baked beans downstairs. Only this time he's got Harvey Weinstein behind him and it's on at a million screens."

13. Clint Eastwood on Spike Lee:
"A guy like him should shut his face."

14. Jacques Rivette on Stanley Kubrick:
"Kubrick is a machine, a mutant, a Martian. He has no human feeling whatsoever. But it's great when the machine films other machines, as in2001."

15. Jacques Rivette on James Cameron (and Steven Spielberg):
"Cameron isn't evil, he's not an asshole like Spielberg. He wants to be the new De Mille. Unfortunately, he can't direct his way out of a paper bag. "

16. Jean-Luc Godard on Steven Spielberg:
"I don't know him personally. I don't think his films are very good."

17. Alex Cox on Steven Spielberg:
"Spielberg isn't a filmmaker, he's a confectioner."

18. Tim Burton on Kevin Smith (after Smith jokingly accused Burton of stealing the ending of Planet of the Apes from a Smith comic book):
"Anyone who knows me knows I would never read a comic book. And I would especially never read anything created by Kevin Smith."

20. Kevin Smith on Paul Thomas Anderson (specifically,Magnolia):
"I'll never watch it again, but I will keep it. I'll keep it right on my desk, as a constant reminder that a bloated sense of self-importance is the most unattractive quality in a person or their work."

21. David Gordon Green on Kevin Smith:
"He kind of created a Special Olympics for film. They just kind of lowered the standard. I'm sure their parents are proud; it's just nothing I care to buy a ticket for."

22. Vincent Gallo on Spike Jonze:
"He's the biggest fraud out there. If you bring him to a party he's the least interesting person at the party, he's the person who doesn't know anything. He's the person who doesn't say anything funny, interesting, intelligent... He's a pig piece of shit."

23. Vincent Gallo on Martin Scorsese:
"I wouldn't work for Martin Scorsese for $10 million. He hasn't made a good film in 25 years. I would never work with an egomaniac has-been."

24. Vincent Gallo on Sofia (and Francis Ford) Coppola:
"Sofia Coppola likes any guy who has what she wants. If she wants to be a photographer she'll fuck a photographer. If she wants to be a filmmaker, she'll fuck a filmmaker. She's a parasite just like her fat, pig father was."

27. David Cronenberg on M. Night Shymalan:
"I HATE that guy! Next question."

28. Alan Parker on Peter Greenaway (specifically The Draughtsman's Contact):
"A load of posturing poo-poo."

29. Ken Russell on Sir Richard Attenborough:
"Sir Richard ('I'm-going-to-attack-the-Establishment-fifty-years-after-it's-dead') Attenborough is guilty of caricature, a sense of righteous self-satisfaction, and repetition which all undermine the impact of the film."

30. Uwe Boll on Michael Bay:
"I'm not a fucking retard like Michael Bay."

Others:

Luchino Visconti

[on Luis Bunuel; '76] I think today there are too many directors taking themselves seriously; the only one capable of saying anything really new and interesting is Luis Bunuel. He's a very great director.

[on Ingmar Bergman] I don't begin to share his way of seeing things any more than his obsessions. All the same I find him interesting. And his universe is much stranger yet than any Japanese filmmaker.

[on Michelangelo Antonioni] It seems that boredom is one of the great discoveries of our time. If so, there's no question but that he must be considered a pioneer.


Andrei Tarkovsky

"There are few people of genius in the cinema; look at Bresson, Mizoguchi, Dovzhenko, Paradjanov, Bunuel: not one of them could be confused with anyone else. An artist of that calibre follows one straight line, albeit at great cost; not without weakness or even, indeed, occasionally being farfetched; but always in the name of the one idea, the one conception."

"What is Bresson's genre? He doesn't have one. Bresson is Bresson. He is a genre in himself. Antonioni, Fellini, Bergman, Kurosawa, Dovzhenko, Vigo, Mizoguchi, Bunuel – each is identified with himself. The very concept of genre is as cold as the tomb. And is Chaplin – comedy? No: he is Chaplin, pure and simple; a unique phenomenon, never to be repeated."

"There are two basic categories of film directors. One consists of those who seek to imitate the world in which they live, the other of those who seek to create their own world. The second category contains the poets of cinema, Bresson, Dovzenko, Mizoguchi, Bergman, Buñuel and Kurosawa, the cinema's most important names. The work of these film-makers is difficult to distribute: it reflects their inner aspirations, and this always runs counter to public taste. This does not mean that the film-makers don't want to be understood by their audience. But rather that they themselves try to pick up on and understand the inner feelings of the audience."


https://www.goldderby.com/forum/movies/directors-on-other-directors/


Puce Moment

Quote from: MortSahlFan on May 31, 2020, 02:40:59 PM
17. Alex Cox on Steven Spielberg:
"Spielberg isn't a filmmaker, he's a confectioner."

Ooooh! I like that!

SavageHedgehog

Thanks for these.

Godard was/is evidently fonder of Jerry Lewis than he was Spielberg, describing him as "the only American director who makes progressive films", and "superior to Chaplin and Keaton."

El Unicornio, mang

Quote from: MortSahlFan on May 31, 2020, 02:40:59 PM

17. Alex Cox on Steven Spielberg:
"Spielberg isn't a filmmaker, he's a confectioner."



That's the first one that came to mind, it's a good quote although I don't agree with it (think it's better suited to Michael Bay) and find Alex Cox's films interminably bad, Repo Man notwithstanding.

Some of these seem like sour grapes or some personal grudge but they're always fun to read.

A couple of others

Vincent Gallo on Abel Ferrara: "Abel Ferrara was on so much crack when I did The Funeral, he was never on set. He was in my room trying to pick-pocket me."

Werner Herzog on Abel Ferrara: "I have no idea who Abel Ferrara is. But let him fight the windmills... I've never seen a film by him. I have no idea who he is. Is he Italian? Is he French? Who is he?"

the science eel

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on May 31, 2020, 04:49:29 PM
That's the first one that came to mind, it's a good quote although I don't agree with it (think it's better suited to Michael Bay)

It's not really a criticism. It's like saying the Monkees were 'just' a pop band. Yeah - and?

MortSahlFan

Quote from: bgmnts on May 31, 2020, 02:44:13 PM
Vincent Gallo's are my favourite.

Besides doing a hell of a job making "Buffalo '66", he's a great interviewer. I'm not a right-winger, but I like anyone who speaks their mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E10YQWgHQDE

itsfredtitmus

Quote"Someone like Jean-Luc Godard is for me intellectual counterfeit money when compared to a good kung-fu film."

hate this it just reeks of the worst kind of cult of personality bollocks that herzog has peddled for years. bet he cant even name one kung-fu film

chveik

Quote from: MortSahlFan on May 31, 2020, 02:40:59 PM
23. Vincent Gallo on Martin Scorsese:
%u201CI wouldn%u2019t work for Martin Scorsese for $10 million. He hasn%u2019t made a good film in 25 years. I would never work with an egomaniac has-been.%u201D

24. Vincent Gallo on Sofia (and Francis Ford) Coppola:
%u201CSofia Coppola likes any guy who has what she wants. If she wants to be a photographer she%u2019ll fuck a photographer. If she wants to be a filmmaker, she%u2019ll fuck a filmmaker. She%u2019s a parasite just like her fat, pig father was.%u201D

this is just weird because he played in Tetro, a film made by the fat pig Coppola father. and he was an extra in Goodfellas. well it's not that weird since Gallo is delusional mess.

itsfredtitmus

not just any kung fu film
but a good one
im herzog and watch me eat a shoe!

El Unicornio, mang

Quote from: chveik on May 31, 2020, 07:13:43 PM
this is just weird because he played in Tetro, a film made by the fat pig Coppola father.

that might be why, Coppola has had a few issues with actors on set. There's footage of Gary Oldman having a bust up with him on the set of Dracula, and Bob Hoskins famously said, after making The Cotton Club with him, that he "couldn't piss in a pot".

greenman

Tarlkovsky didn't like 2001 much and made Solaris as a counter to it.

"everything would be as it should. That means to create psychologically, not an exotic but a real, everyday environment that would be conveyed to the viewer through the perception of the film's characters. That's why a detailed 'examination' of the technological processes of the future transforms the emotional foundation of a film, as a work of art, into a lifeless schema with only pretensions to truth."

MortSahlFan

"Tetro" was an awful movie.

Herzog did make "Strosczek" which I think is a very good movie.

the science eel

Quote from: MortSahlFan on June 01, 2020, 01:56:41 PM

Herzog did make "Strosczek" which I think is a very good movie.

It's the only non-doc Herzog I enjoyed. Couldn't understand the love for Aguirre at all.

MortSahlFan

Quote from: the science eel on June 01, 2020, 07:50:17 PM
It's the only non-doc Herzog I enjoyed. Couldn't understand the love for Aguirre at all.
I thought it was ok, the atmosphere, and the after-effects of going nuts, but "Fitzcarraldo" wasn't good, while many love it.

I guess its like food. People like what they like.

lipsink

Is Vincent Gallo actually right wing then? I always assumed he was just being ironic and doing some sort of performance art like the time he posted a long insane advertisement selling his sperm.

C_Larence

Quote18. Tim Burton on Kevin Smith (after Smith jokingly accused Burton of stealing the ending of Planet of the Apes from a Smith comic book):
"Anyone who knows me knows I would never read a comic book. And I would especially never read anything created by Kevin Smith."

To which Smith later replied on one of his 3000 podcasts:
QuoteWhich, to me, explains fucking "Batman"

Which is a decent comeback, as much as I agree with David Gordon Green's assessment of Smith in the OP.
I seem to recall Burton later explaining that he is severely dyslexic, which is what he was getting at when he said he would never read a comic. 

AsparagusTrevor

Quote from: lipsink on June 04, 2020, 08:19:15 PMIs Vincent Gallo actually right wing then? I always assumed he was just being ironic and doing some sort of performance art like the time he posted a long insane advertisement selling his sperm.

Dunno, but he looks like Mackenzie Crook was morphing into Joaquin Phoenix and got stuck halfway.

mrfridge

Quote from: AsparagusTrevor on June 05, 2020, 10:36:44 AM
Dunno, but he looks like Mackenzie Crook was morphing into Joaquin Phoenix and got stuck halfway.

Terrific.

Inspector Norse

Quote from: lipsink on June 04, 2020, 08:19:15 PM
Is Vincent Gallo actually right wing then? I always assumed he was just being ironic and doing some sort of performance art like the time he posted a long insane advertisement selling his sperm.

Isn't it more that he's just a bit of a knob?

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: itsfredtitmus on May 31, 2020, 07:11:06 PM
hate this it just reeks of the worst kind of cult of personality bollocks that herzog has peddled for years. bet he cant even name one kung-fu film

Quote
not just any kung fu film
but a good one
im herzog and watch me eat a shoe!

I won't argue with your own opinion about how the quote makes you feel, BUT I will correct you on the point of his knowledge of kung-fu films - he loves them.  I can't recall he's ever said it's his favourite genre, but martial arts films were among the first exposures he had to cinema after living a fairly culturally sheltered life in the middle of nowhere at the foot of the Alps.  He's said before that he's seen all of the Kwan Tak-Hing Wong Fei-Hung films (and there's about 70 of those), spent a lot of time going to the Chinese cinema in Moss Side when he lived there for a while (late 50s/early 60s I think), and he's also a big fan of Tsui Hark's work as director.


Also, the full quote is:
"Someone like Jean-Luc Godard is for me intellectual counterfeit money when compared to a good kung fu film, a Fred Astaire picture, or a porno."

I actually completely agree with him.  I can't stand Godard.

the science eel

So much joy in Godard's stuff - before Weekend at least. That's what I don't get about criticism of his films - saying he's 'academic' or something.

the science eel

In fact much more fun than in any fucking Herzog I've ever seen.

It's that German/French antipathy, you know.

Shit Good Nose

^
We'll agree to disagree there, on both points.  But then it's our own subjective opinions.


Quote from: Inspector Norse on June 05, 2020, 03:59:22 PM
Isn't it more that he's just a bit of a knob?

Yes, although RE his quote about Sofia Coppola - as some of you may or may not be aware (I've mentioned it a few times on CaB and told a few stories), a mate of mine worked as a freelance journo in the States (based in New York) from the mid-late 90s until 2001 (when he was mandatorily shipped home with most other non-essential Brits working over there in the wake of 9/11), and what Gallo says about her - whilst not at all subtle and pretty nasty - is, by all accounts, a fairly accurate description of her.  I have heard similar about her dad before as well from various places.

MortSahlFan

Orson Welles : My favorite filmmaker is (Vittorio) De Sica. Ah, Sciusa; it's the best film I ever saw.