Just some film musings of a more succinct, spontaneous and sometimes seditious nature:

Wednesday, June 21, 2023

Today, in our Facebook chat room (readers are welcome to join here), a member posted what he considers to be the 30 greatest directors of all time. His selections are:

30. Fritz Lang/ FW Murnau

29. DW Griffith

28. David Lean

27. Paul Thomas Anderson

26. Carl Theodor Dreyer

25. Wong Kar-Wai

24. David Lynch

23. John Ford

22. Martin Scorsese

21. Robert Bresson

20. Abbass Kiarostami

19. Krzystof Kieslowski

18. Michelangelo Antonioni

17. Satyajit Ray

16. Yasujiro Ozu

15. Sergio Leone

14. Charles Chaplin

13. Sergei Eisenstein

12. Hayao Miyazaki

11. Werner Herzog

10. Luis Bunuel

9. Agnes Varda

8. Terrence Malick

7. Jean-Luc Godard

6. Alfred Hitchcock

5. Akira Kurosawa

4. Federico Fellini

3. Ingmar Bergman

2. Andrei Tarkovsky

1. Stanley Kubrick

There were, expectedly, heaps of responses naming directors that the posters felt should have been listed such as: Francis Ford Coppola, William Friedkin, Howard Hawks, Raoul Walsh, Henry King, Ernst Lubitsch, and Orson Welles (whom the o.p. stated in a reply that he had forgotten about). Others brought up Billy Wilder, William Wyler, Kenji Mizoguchi, Buster Keaton, François Truffaut, Sidney Lumet, Louis Malle, Frederick Wiseman (so often overlooked, I was so glad he got mentioned), Chris Marker, and Edward Yang among others.

I too thought of directors to include which meant that this post, at the very least, provided a substantial serving of food for thought.

Instead of suggesting still more filmmakers to consider, I deliberated on making a list of my own but quickly discovered this kind of ranking would not be in keeping with my personal taste. Here’s why:

“I myself could never make such a list. Not that I'm opposed to creating these types of records in general. I've written a number of Top Ten lists along with introductions as to how the selections were made. It's just that even the most accomplished filmmakers/directors have produced at least one or two, shall we say, "misguided" films that failed to achieve the desired results. For example, Akira Kurosawa directed and co-wrote what I believe to be the most artistically consummate film of all time (Ikiru) but he also made the profusely sentimentalised Dodes'ka-den, a film I could barely sit through. In addition, filmmaking is almost always a collaborative process. The most expressive and enlightened motion pictures are typically due to a harmonious blend of creative elements, not just one person’s effort. Thus, I feel it’s best if I favour evaluations that address each film on its own, so that for one, other deserving contributors can share in the credit. I would also not want to give the impression that any filmmaker/director is so great that he/she is incapable of stumbling, nor somehow diminish any individual artistic success, especially regarding those filmmakers who may have only directed a few films or perhaps just one. It is also important to keep in mind that the higher an artist reaches, the more obstacles he/she will encounter along the way.”

All responses are not only welcomed but encouraged in the comments section below.

Hope to see you tomorrow.

A.G.

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