EPISODE 239: TOP 100 DIRECTORS

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3 Responses

  1. Battleship Pretension says:

    We briefly mention a few directors in this episode that weren’t submitted. A notable one that I (Tyler) forgot to mention was Vittorio De Sica. I thought he’d at least be submitted once or twice.

  2. Dan says:

    I was the one guy to put Milos Forman on my list… this makes me weirdly proud of myself. Of course, after seeing the full list there are a few on there I wish I could take back. Ridley Scott made my list because three movies that really affected me as a movie goer is as many as maybe anyone else (the third one for me being Gladiator, which was always a personal favorite of mine… I think I saw it at just the right age).

  3. Christoffer says:

    Very interesting podcast, just discovered you guys and will probably listen to more. Anyways, my comments:

    I really don’t think historical importance or how much someone changed a medium is any reason to be put on a list of “best directors”.

    To be completely honest, how is Griffith’s movies any better than those of, say, Emmerich? Gigantic films with lots of action, but in the end they are just really thin. He didn’t even know what Intolerance meant when he made Intolerance, hopefully someone told him later but he seems to have mixed it up with hypocrisy and basically everything else that was considered morally wrong. For example, praying to your god before going to war was stated to be very intolerant, as was not killing yourself when your country lost the war … But then I’m far from an expert on Griffith, and my opinion could change when I check out Way Down East, Orphans of the Storm, etc. He’s certainly a solid director, but wether or not cinema history wouldn’t be the same without him is irrelevant, IMO. And no, he’s not among my top 100 directors.

    Eisenstein on the other hand I love. Sadly I watched the version of October with sound effects, etc. which really brought it down. Should try to search for a version with a different score. Having said that he’s not among my top 10 directors. What brings him down is mostly Ivan the Terrible Part II, which was such a huge disappointment after finding the first one to be an absolute masterpiece. Not only did he whore himself out to such disgusting levels that he threw in an out of place color film without any structural reason or logic behind it other than – hey look we could afford to shoot this in color, ain’t it cool” – but he also threw in several scenes with characters bursting into song. Ok, I’ll be honest, it was still a good movie despite all it’s flaws, but it just didn’t sit right in my mouth. Furthermore he really didn’t make enough films for me to give him such a high placing.

    — Ok, so that’s it about historical importance, and the two listed directors brought up in this context —

    As for your film school bit I don’t doubt it would be useful. Film classes was part of the cariculum on the media school I attended, but it was just on a really shallow level and would have loved some more thorough examination. Had seen all the movies we were shown, except some odd choices of new (relatively mainstream) cinema. But I have to say that being self thought really doesn’t mean you won’t get to see/hear about obscure cinema. Memories of Underdevelopment is forexample on the They Shoot Pictures Don’t They’s top 1000, which is probably the most respected list out there. Not too fond of that movie myself, but it was ok. Yet to see Hyènes, but it has been on my radar for years. As you use up the safe zone, i.e. The IMDb top 250, etc. you will find new ways to find interesting looking films. Ok, enough of the “I didn’t go to film school but I’m still as good as you routine” ;D

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    Really doubt too many people will read this, so I think I’ll just stop myself there. Excellent podcast, will continue to listen. A final remark would be that I think you would have gotten a much more interesting list if you had expanded the nominations to 25 per voter, though that would also have meant tons of more work to you. As I didn’t vote in this I’ll do the next best thing and link to my own top 100, for whatever that’s worth: http://www.imdb.com/list/uTxeTivyxLE/

    P.S. Really don’t care for Joe Dante. Gremlins is great, but the other movies I’ve seen from him: Piranha, The Howling, Small Soldiers and Looney Tunes: Back in Action seemed really poor and uninspired.

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