My Favorite 10 - Movie Directors

A movie is the most complex medium of expression and a movie-makers job, extremely difficult. But something even more arduous is to shortlist Top Ten filmmakers of all time. Here’s my attempt at it.

*The list isn’t in any particular order of preference.

Ingmar Bergman (Swedish, 1918 – 2007)
My first exposure to Mr. Bergman’s craft was inside the darkness of a theater at FTII, Pune, some nine years ago. The movie was Wild Strawberries and it turned me on with its unconventional style of story-telling. Since then I’ve watched and re-watched all of his works.
His subtle and understated exploration of the human condition remains unparalleled.
As a tribute to the man, after he passed away, I had written a piece, which you can read here.

Akira Kurosawa (Japanese, 1910 – 1998)
Apart from giving many new techniques and styles to the world of movies, what really makes Mr. Kurosawa a genius, are the range of subjects that he chose and the perfectionism that he sought in each of his movies.
His subjects vary from a glorious take on Shakespeare (Throne of Blood) to an urban story of kidnapping (High and Low) to a story about a maverick doctor (Red Beard). As for the hunt for perfection, consider this trivia: In the final scene of Throne of Blood, in which the central character is shot by arrows, Kurosawa used real arrows shot by expert archers from a short range, landing within centimeters of actor’s body.

Satyajit Ray (Indian, 1921 – 1991)
Watching De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief changed a young Mr. Ray’s life and later, he went on to change the landscape & grammar of movies in India and putting it on the world map. The multi-talented Mr. Ray was easily the biggest creative force to hit India.
Once again, he chose varied subjects and was a stickler for perfection. In fact, he used to draw each frame of the movie before starting the shoot. Little wonder that he was a fan of Mr. Kurosawa. The Japanese auteur too, had great respect for him.

Stanley Kubrick (American, 1928 – 1999)
Mr. Kubrick was all about choosing radically different themes and executing them big. None of his movies are small. They are all meant for the big-screen experience in a theater. He will take you from horror (The Shining) to sci-fi (Space Odyssey 2001) to satire/comedy (Dr Strangelove) to a futuristic world (A Clockwork Orange) with equal finesse and his trademark feeling of enormity. This giant from the world of movies will always stand tall for me.

Alfred Hitchcock (British / American, 1899 – 1980)
Enough has been written about this master of a particular genre. Nobody did it better. And perhaps nobody will be able to do it better.
One of my all time favorite sequences is in the great concept movie, The Birds when the birds start assembling in the school playground for another attack while the kids are singing in chorus inside the classroom during their music class. What a build-up!

Francois Truffaut (French, 1932 – 1984)
The 400 Blows, Mr. Truffaut’s debut, defined the French New Wave and in what a manner it did so. This film critic turned movie director paved way other greats like Godard and Chabrol. The last sequence of another one of his masterpieces, Jules and Jim will stay with any of its viewer forever. Many contemporary good movies like Amelie, Eight Women keep reflecting this man’s impact. Unfortunately, he died at an early age of 52 due to a brain tumor.

Krzysztof Kieslowski (Polish, 1941 – 1996)
This movie giant from Poland had one of the most unique minds. It gets reflected in all his scripts and their executions. Take Three Colors in which he chooses to interpret the French motto of Liberty, Equality & Fraternity in his own unique style. Or take The Decalogue, wherein he gives his own interpretation to The Ten Commandments.
Apart from these popular works, he has many lesser known gems like No End, Blind Chance, Camera Buff…the list is endless.

Federico Fellini (Italian, 1920 – 1993)This man’s movies are a unique combination of memory, dreams, fantasy and desire. He has given a lot to the world of art, movies and even journalism. The adjectives “Fellinian” and “Felliniesque” are synonymous with any kind of extravagant and fanciful image in the cinema and in art in general. As many of would know that the term “Paparazzi” comes from a photographer character in his masterpiece, La Dolce Vita.
Anybody vaguely interested in the world of movies cannot afford to miss Mr. Fellini’s autobiographical classic, 8 ½.

Roman Polanski ( Polish, 1953 – present)
Mr Polanski is another master of psychological thrillers (and sometimes horror). The Apartment Trilogy (Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby & Tenant), Chinatown and the latest The Ghost Writer just go on to prove this.
Despite going through a very difficult, controversial and a chaotic life (or perhaps because of it) he has continued to make some of the best movies of our times. Rosemary’s Baby remains one of my all time greatest horror movies.

Woody Allen (American, 1935 – present)
His landmark creation Annie Hall gets reflected in contemporary American sitcoms, almost 30 years after the movie was made. He almost never uses newly created music in his movies, opting for the ocean of compositions (varying between Western Classical and Jazz) which are already there in the universe. He has written some of the funniest plays and short stories of the modern times. He is an accomplished Jazz Clarinetist. He has won three Academy Awards and been nominated a total of 21 times. He is Mr. Woody Allen.

There are some other names that were in the short-list and I shall put them up in the comment box. Do share your list if you feel up to it.

Ingmar Bergman (1918 - 2007)

‘Our friend Berman is dead!’, my cinephile colleague announced from the other end and my reaction was, ‘Oh…he must've been 90, no?. '89’, my friend corrected me.

Natural death of any great artiste doesn’t arouse sadness in me because of two reasons. Firstly, because the person’s time had come and secondly, the artiste will always be alive through his works. So, without getting sad, I said to myself, ‘This calls for a post’. But then I remembered that I’ve already written something on the moviemaker, which you can find over here. So, what else do I put up as a tribute to the great man who turned (and will continue to turn) so many moments of my life into pleasurable ones and in such intelligent ways.

Then, I bumped into this excerpt from an interview, where Mr Bergman gives his opinion on other film directors. He replies with his usual brutal honesty and I had material for my post.

On Orson Welles:

Bergman: 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.

On Michelangelo Antonioni:
Bergman: He's done two masterpieces, you don't have to bother with the rest. One is Blow-Up, which I've seen many times, and the other is La Notte, also a wonderful film, although that's mostly because of the young Jeanne Moreau. In my collection I have a copy of Il Grido, 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 realising 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, for example. Only indifference. I never understood why Antonioni was so incredibly applauded. And I thought his muse Monica Vitti was a terrible actress.

On Federico Fellini:

Bergman: We were supposed to collaborate once, and along with Kurosawa make one love story each for a movie produced by Dino de Laurentiis. I flew down to Rome with my script and spent a lot of time with Fellini while we waited for Kurosawa, who finally couldn't leave Japan because of his health, so the project went belly-up. Fellini was about to finish Satyricon. I spent a lot of time in the studio and saw him work. I loved him both as a director and as a person, and I still watch his movies, like La Strada and that childhood rememberance - what's that called again?
The interviewer admits that he has also seen the movie several times, but just now the title slips his mind. Bergman laughs delightedly.

Bergman: Great that you're also a bit senile! That pleases me.

Later the same day, several hours after the interview, the phone rings:It's Bergman. 'AMARCORD!', he shouts.

On Francois Truffaut:

Bergman: I liked Truffaut a lot, I've felt a lot of admiration for his way to address the audience, and his storytelling. La nuit américaine is adorable, and another film I like to see is L'enfant sauvage, with its fine humanism.

On Jean-Luc Godard:

Bergman: 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 mindnumbingly boring.

On Andrei Tarkovsky:

Late one evening in 1971, Bergman and his friend and director Kjell Grede by pure coincidence stumbled upon a copy of Andrej Rubljov in a screening room at Svensk Filmindustri. They saw it without any subtitles. He ranks it to be one of his most startling and unforgettable movie experiences ever.

On modern American cinema:

Bergman: Among today's directors I'm of course impressed by Steven Spielberg and Scorsese, and Coppola, even if he seems to have ceased making films, and Steven Soderbergh - they all have something to say, they're passionate, they have an idealistic attitude to the filmmaking process. Soderbergh's Traffic is amazing. Another couple of fine examples of the strength of American cinema are American Beauty and Magnolia.

‘Seventh Seal’, one of his masterpieces depicts Man’s battle with Death over a game of chess…a battle which Death always wins. But not in the case of an artiste like Mr Bergman...his work lives on.

Three Movies and a Play

Shrek III: The 3rd edition of one of the popular icon of our times teaches the lesson, ‘don’t get bothered by what others think of you...just stay true to yourself’. Nicely fairy-taleish and executed in the same brilliance, of the preceding two editions, it’s an easy and funny watch. Though nothing can take away the charm of the first one, purely because it’s the first time you are introduced to the characters and 'Far Far Away'. One thing that has been consistent in all editions of this tale centering on the green monster is the brilliantly timed usage of music…whether its Jason Wade’s version of ‘You belong to me’ in Shrek or Led Zepp’s ‘Immigrant Song’ in the latest one.

Later, I realized that we were one of the first few ones to have watched the movie, as it hasn’t been released officially in the Bombay theaters. Apparently, we had caught the paid preview!

Vivement Dimanche or Finally Sunday (1983): This Black & White tribute to Alfred Hitchcock by Francois Tuffaut (of 400 Blows fame) is an out and out murder mystery with a very attractive looking Fanny Ardent playing the lead. It happened on a Sunday afternoon on Zee Studio, thanks to Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra & UTV combine effort. Truffaut was an expert on Hitchcock and great admirer of his work which explains the deliberate usage of Black & White.

King of Comedy (once again 1983): Along with Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, this movie forms an unofficial trilogy of films by Scorcese and De Niro portraying obsessive characters. It’s a great satire on the cult of celebrity with great performance and among Scorsese’s best. In fact, Scorsese claims that its De Niro’s finest performance under his direction.

Aapki Soniya, a play by Javed Siddiqui: This one is a sequel to the highly popular ‘Tumhari Amrita’ which had Farooque Sheikh & Shabana Azmi. While the impeccable Sheikh continues as the same character from ‘Tumhari…’, Soniya, the new character has been enacted in an unexpected good manner by Sonali Bendre. The format remains the same…which is that of letter-reading between the two characters.

If you appreciate and understand the beauty of Urdu, this one is a must. Mr Siddiqui writes very well with ample amount of Ghalib and Zaukh thrown in at the right moments. So, despite a starving stomach, I enjoyed the play. More so, because my friend’s father (who was also with us) used the interval to ‘pick my brains’ (as he said) trying to understand the nuances of the language. I was glad to be of some help. The play ended in a rather disappointing manner becoming unnecessary soppy like a typical Bollywood movie. But, without getting turned off by the last sentence, go ahead and form your own judgement by watching the play.