Ten Filmmakers

On one of my chatrooms, I was recently asked who my favorite filmmakers are. Maybe that's not the question I answered, but it got me thinking... These are the directors who stick out as the most influential to me, in no particular order. In each case, I've offered a quick note as to how and why I love them:

Stanley Kubrick
More than anything, I admire Kubrick's daring. While his choice in content is consistently provocative, it's really the things he demands of his actors that push the boundaries and challenge me to better myself. Each performance he directed is a study in the limits of human endurance, morality, understanding, and emotional balance - and in some cases, consciousness itself. Once he has that edge defined, he martials all the forces of Hollywood to make that journey real and tangible for the actor, and for us. For me, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a lifelong touchstone - although picking a favorite Kubrick film seems cheeky.

Andrei Tarkovski
To me, Tarkovski is better than any other director at capturing the subtleties of the human experience, in all it's beauty and confusion. To get the really good stuff, you have to wait for it. No filmmaker is quite so patient as he. Solaris is by far my favorite, but I'm a big fan of Andrei Rublyov.

Ingmar Bergman
If Tarkovski is the hunter behind a snowblind, Bergman is a master trapper. Working with actors is a divine pleasure and a gift, and Bergman knows actors better than anyone. On the one hand, he never let his favorite ones go! On the other hand, a new actor makes writing and directing feel just like Christmas. Testing, exploring, and sussing them out was the fine work of Bergman's life. By baiting them with his words and his presence and then capturing them on camera, he gave us the very best performances of many of the best actors alive today. My favorite Bergman films are Fanny & Alexander and Autumn Sonata.

Steven Spielberg
Very little needs to be said here. Spielberg's greatest gift is in finding the beauty and humanity in any situation, and in making it obvious on the screen. To me, the best stuff is his most challenging: Empire of the Sun, A.I., and Munich.

Peter Weir
While I love Witness and Master and Commander, Fearless is my favorite. More than any other director working today, I feel Peter Weir is chasing the truth behind his characters. Each film he makes is so considered and patient, and yet do deliberate and relentless in it's inexorable peeling of the onion. His heroes are informed by masterful performances, clearly forged by the careful, intimate collaboration of a script, an actor, and a director. Of all the directors here, I'd most love to work on a Peter Weir set.

Peter Hyams
Who doesn't love Outland? I'm also a sucker for 2010 and Hanover Street. More than any other director I've seen, Peter Hyams has a deep love of revealing details. Conversations about what mustard is best with a New York hot dog go naturally with the air breaking maneuvers of a ship in Jupiter's outer atmosphere. In a war torn London, the thing that connects two lonely, tired souls is the English ritual of tea. These are the moments when Peter Hyams really shines, and I love it.

George Clooney
What can a guy like me say about George Clooney? Of all the people working in Hollywood today, he's got the best attitude toward leadership and it comes through on the screen - especially when he's dealing with subject matter he knows. Creating the worlds of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Good Night and Good Luck relied on his knowledge of the old world of network broadcasting, and that confidence and his natural charisma gave him what he needed to lead a cast and crew through what was obviously an amazing experience - and it shows on screen. Of the two, Good Night is my favorite. In the case of Leatherheads, it seemed as though the cast was having as much fun, but his grip on the production as a whole was too tight. Maybe it was because he was dealing in fantasy, rather than a world he knew backwards and forwards. Comedy like Leatherheads needs to be boozy and loose, and that can't be manufactured. It must be given space. Allowed. All the same, I loved it.

Stephen Soderbergh
Of course, Stephen Soderbergh and George Clooney have a lot in common - that's why they're such good friends, or so it seems. At the same time, what i love about Soderbergh is how intrepid and loose he is with his characters. If he decides to tell the story of a toy planty worker, he's gonna let that character find their own story on their own terms. To bring that story to life on the screen, he gets intimate instead of getting forceful. Instead of making them step in line, he expores their story - and he does it with a zest that's totally mesmerizing. Winning, even! Right now, my two favorites are Bubble and Out of Sight. Close runners up are Traffic and Sex, Lies, and Videotape.

Tony Gilroy
Most people don't know who Tony Gilroy is. He's the writer from The Bourne Identity, who last year directed Michael Clayton, which I loved. Right now, his second feature, Duplicity, is in theaters. I still haven't seen it. What I love about Michael Clayton, and about the writing of Tony Gilroy in general, is how he finds the pulp and the fun in modern institution, and in the ordinary. Michael Clayton is as smutty a detective story as there ever was, but it chooses truth as it's setting, legitimizing its content and elevating its context at the same time. How cool is that? How can you cast someone like George Clooney in a pulpy whodunit, and still have it feel so true to life? Amazing. I'm very excited for Duplicity, where it seems he's grounded the sassy banter of something like The Thin Man in the hard world of corporate doube-dealing. This may be the first real Julia Roberts movie since Erin Brockovich.

Charlie Chaplin
Wow. Ok, this one may seem out of left field... There's two things I take from Chaplin. On the one hand, his ability to just make movies is unparalleled, even today. He just went and did it, and invented huge chunks of cinematography along the way! Only Robert Rodriguez comes close. On the other hand, he pushed melodrama to the limits of it's emotional complexity, and never JUST gave the audience what they wanted. Even his most comic moments are riddled with sadness and loss, and while people walk out of the theater having gotten the product that was advertised, there was a monkeywrench at work in their minds and hearts. None of his films just leave your mind once you've seen them. In the horror of war, he found laughter. In the silly delirium of love, he found profound tragedy. You can't have one without the other. Tell me you can, and you're a damn liar. So many films today don't understand this simple lesson. While I'll watch anything of Chaplin's, my favorite has to be City Lights.