Modern Maestros: And Many More...

Robert here with the final entry in my series on great directors.

A full year after starting my Directors of the Decade series that eventually evolved into Modern Maestros, I can declare that no man should besmirch the state of movies today.  We've discussed 47 directors who are consistently putting out films that are original, interesting, exciting and often masterpieces.

With each piece I've come to love even more each director and what it means to be a lover of film in this day and age.  Even though the series won't go on, I know it could.  There are still many directors worth celebrating.

There's Oliver Assayas and his ability to direct a wide variety of films from the heartwarming to the hopelessly cool.  The Brothers Dardenne with their Bressonian influence continue to pop up and find success at festivals every few years.  Turkish prince of detachment Nuri Bilge Ceylan has thus far been under-the-radar, but I await his eventual breakthrough.  Swede Lukas Moodysson brought us some of the most heartbreaking and heartwarming films of the past fifteen years.  Carlos Reygadas who can depend on mixed responses to his difficult films which are never less than downright intriguing.

Directors Danny Boyle, king of whirlwind editing, Peter Weir, consistent craftsman that he is and David O. Russell who we all wish worked a little more easily are poised to present entries into this year's Oscar race.

And speaking of Oscars, we have yet to see if Kathryn Bigelow's win last year helps solidify support for female directors, but dark romantic Jane Campion, ennui enabler Sophia Coppola and drama celebrating Lisa Cholodenko are all worth celebrating.

The recent explosion of documentaries can perhaps be traced back to the success of Michael Moore who, provocateur though he is, knows how to create enticing films.  Other documentarians like Charles Ferguson and Alex Gibney continue the tradition of asking important questions through their cinema.

The boom in Asian directors has been a running theme, yet I missed Hou Hsai-hsien who has been doing his thing for decades, perfecting his modern yet classic observational style and Hirokazu Koreeda whose poignant films cover the topics of life and loss.

Horror and Fantasy can often be a mass-produced wasteland but Guillermo del Toro with his dark humanity, Sam Raimi with his sense of fun and Peter Jackson with his mastery have all elevated those genres to new heights.

Bill Condon, Stephen Frears, and Terrence Davies have found a way to keep sophistication from becoming dusty.  Quite the contrary, they keep churning out films that are distinctly modern.

Clint Eastwood, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Julie Taymor and Julian Schnabel are among the names who've put out minor works this year (or flat out bad films depending on who you ask) but is there any questions whether or not their next film will be greeted with just as much anticipation as their last?  They could strike gold at any moment.

You can add to that list Sam Mendes, Stephen Daldry, Terry Gilliam, and Fernando Meirelles who we can pretty dependably assume will rise to great heights again.

Veterans of the old indie movement have found nice niches for themselves, whether that be Jim Jarmusch and his cerebral minimalism, Spike Lee and his documentaries or Noah Baumbach and his uncomfortable dark comedies.

Young independent directors are coming of age nicely too, like Ryan Fleck and Anna Bodden who clearly have great understanding for their characters.  Or Thomas McCarthy who clearly has a great love of his characters.  Or Todd Field who clearly appreciates the great drama that his characters provide.

How about the real veterans.  Eighty-five year old Sidney Lumet still knows how to make a film that's gripping.  Eighty-two year old Agnes Varda knows how to infuse a doc with her artistry.  Seventy-nine year old Godard proved at Cannes that he can still cause a stir.  And One Hundred and One year old Manoel de Oliviera is still working... my god he's still working.

And then there's Terrence Malick.  Has any other director since Kubrick found himself surrounded by such an aura of mystery and anticipation... he's practically an American folk hero.

After all that I could still name more, and so could you.  So I encourage you to share the directors who you look forward to, film after film after film, whether they've directed one movie like Duncan Jones or dozens like Abbas Kiarostami, whether they've fallen from grace like Tim Burton or are on the top of the world like James Cameron.  Tell me who I've missed or simply give love to someone who bears repeating.

Here is a list of all the directors covered by Directors of the Decade/Modern Maestros:
Martin Scorsese, Ramin Bahrani, David Lynch, Darren Aronofsky, Tsai Ming-liang, Brad Bird (Mr. Complexity),Lars von Trier, Andrew Stanton (Mr. Simplicity),  Gus Van Sant, David Gordon Green,
Joel and Ethan Coen,Guy Maddin, Paul Thomas Anderson, Roy Andersson, Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino,Claire Denis,  Zhang Ke Jia, Christopher Nolan, Jason Reitman, Pete Docter (Mr. Madcap),
Paul Greengrass, David Cronenberg,  Wong Kar Wai, Michael Haneke, Alexander Payne, Hayao Miyazaki, Todd Haynes,  Spike Jonze, Steven Spielberg,Andrew Bujawlski,Steven Soderbergh, Werner Herzog, Michel Gondry, Errol Morris Ang Lee, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Bela Tarr,Edgar Wright,Woody Allen,  Mike Leigh Catherine Breillat,  Zhang Yimou, Alfonso Cuaron, Aleksandr Sokurov,  David Fincher, Pedro Almodovar.

Modern Maestros: Pedro Almodóvar

Robert here, with my series on great contemporary directors.  This will be my last entry on a specific director, so I thought I'd go out with a bang.  Next week I'll wrap things up in a more general sense.

Maestro: Pedro Almodóvar
Known For: colorful, often kinky films about love and obsession.
Influences: Billy Wilder, Hitchcock, Sirk, Fassbinder, Fellini

Masterpieces: All About My Mother and Talk to Her
Disasters: I'm not sure if he's capable of making a disaster.  Some of his films are minor efforts but they're all so wonderfully Almodóvar.

Better than you remember: They've all gotten a pretty fair run, unless you're The Academy in which case Volver is much better than you seem to think.
Box Office: Volver with over 12 mil.

Back in the glory days of cinema, there were foreign film artists who the cinema-going public knew and patronized en masse.  There was Bergman and Fellini and Kurosawa, all of whom broke into the mainstream and developed reputations that sustain them to this day.  Pedro Almodóvar is the closest we have to this now.  While he may not have achieved as much popularity as those men (in today's industry no one could), he's one of the few foreign film directors with name recognition who can count on his films opening reasonably wide in the U.S. as a given, and occasional award attention.  We can thank this on a style of filmmaking that Almodovar has developed that is fresh, exciting and unequalled.

Passion.  Love.  Obsession.  These are the elements of Almodóvar's fancy.  They are timeless yet modern.  After all passion, love, and obsession have always driven the actions of mankind and still do.  Which explains why we can so easily relate, even when the impassioned characters are somewhat less than sympathetic. Consider Talk to Her's Benigno, a man whose love/lust toward his comatose patient results in some pretty abhorrent behavior.  So why aren't we abhorred?  Because in the world of Almodóvar he's a victim of his own passions.  Contrasted with Paco (the father from Volver) who we do abhor because we know he's a victim of his own carnality.  Almodóvar knows that line, and he knows how to exploit it.  And it's how he exploits it that sets him apart.  Most directors who deal in passions and obsessions delve into the dark depths of humanity.  Yet Almodóvar celebrates these things.  Please don't get me wrong, he doesn't paint a happy picture for those victims of their obsessions, but his films, awash in bright colors, glorious melodrama and naked flesh, present these things in the way they make us feel alive, energized, aroused, and fully human.  There is a love of life to be found in Almodóvar's work.  It's not sentimentalized.  It's honest.  It's a celebration of all humanity, the whole messy thing.

Further pushing the dramatic line, Almodóvar explores how these passions come to form our identity and vice-versa.  After all, what we obsess over, what we love for and cry for is a direct result of what we define ourselves as, whether that be motherless or childless, man or woman, gay or straight.  Almodóvar's characters are often forced to confront their identities as they come to realize they were never what they thought they were to begin with, and the passions they've developed so unconsciously  that have become so personal, may have been based entirely on non truths.  These moments at the core of Almodóvar's films make for great melodramas that don't feel the slightest bit artificial.  Yet another true contradiction of a talented filmmaker.

Pedro Almodóvar is hard at work on his next film, a revenge thriller that may be a bit of a departure from his recent work, but no doubt will challenge his viewers and his own characters, and be rooted and impassioned humanity.  The film will pair him with Antonio Banderas, an actor with whom he hasn't worked recently but who can thank Almodóvar for much of his exposure.  The Internet Movie Database lists yet another upcoming film for the director (though these things are often subject to change) about Italian singer Mina, a great subject for a great melodrama.  The promise of two Almodóvar films in two years seems too good to be true.  We'll be keeping our fingers crossed, those of us who are passionate (if not obsessed) with Pedro Almodóvar.
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Modern Maestros: David Fincher

Robert here, continuing my series on important contemporary directors.  As Nathaniel has mentioned, the series is coming to an end.  This will be the third-to-last entry.  Enjoy!


Maestro: David Fincher
Known For: dark, suspenseful, psychological thrillers.
Influences: Hitchcock, all kinds of noir, Welles, Kubrick, Ridley Scott

Masterpieces: Seven
Disasters: Alien³
Better than you remember: some of his films like Fight Club or Benjamin Button get considerable hype blowback.  But looking at them as works of direction they're very very impressive.
Box Office: 127 million for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

"Tales of the strange and unusual" might be a fitting title to David Fincher's filmography.  But don't be mislead.  His "strange and unusual" isn't the same as other such directors'.  It's not the surrealism of Lynch or the benign fantastical of Burton or the sterile other-worldliness of Kubrick.  David Fincher's films are set right here in our reality, featuring characters who reflect you and I.  Only through the slow process of plot development do we (and they) realize that they're inhabiting a darker, stranger, often more sinister version of what they considered to be their world.  And it's how they face that, that primarily interests Fincher.  Not all of Fincher's films may have as obvious a revelation as, say, Fight Club.  But each character is forced to confront and understand the mysteries that have uprooted their lives.  It's a matter of psychology, a butting of the heads of the normal and abnormal, and Fincher wants to know which wins out.  To his credit, Fincher provides us with stories that lack such clear answers.  Killers are never found (or they are with mixed results), evil is vanquished too late, or the promise of answers (by, for example, a life lived backwards) is not fulfilled.  All dark endings necessary to enlighten the complexities of characters.

Since Fincher is primarily interested in his characters his often-noted stylish direction takes on expressionist flourishes meant to place us, the viewer, into the swirling minds of our heroes.  His low angles, dark lighting, wide shots and flashy editing are occasionally dismissed as needlessly excessive.  But they add to his reality, but taking the setting of our world and creating the unreality felt by his characters.  Fincher makes mood pieces that mimic the moods of his subjects.

Fincher has noted what he considers two distinct types of filmaking.  The cold technical Kubrick style and the personal sentimental Spielberg style.  While he may not have the resume to compete with those men quite yet, Fincher's own style is an interesting marriage of the two.  Like Kubrick his interest in his characters more of the clinical variety.  He cares not for developing warm and fuzzy sympathies.  Yet it is essential to his work that the audience becomes the character.  In this way he is very Spielbergian.  We must empathize, and inhabit the character.  We must know them emotionally or the cold clinical reality will be utterly pointless.

It's been much written that The Social Network is a serious departure for Fincher.  I've not had the fortune of seeing that film quite yet, but I think that assessment is most likely true and false.  The film still presents a unique psychological case study and a character faced with a redefined reality.  It still features dueling psyches and ambiguous resolutions I'm guessing [Editor's note: Your guess is right on the money].  Yet it is tied so distinctly to our modern world, it's hard to see how the encompassing darkness of Fincher will present itself.  Fincher has said that he was attracted to the project because it was a departure and it seems to be winning him the best notices of his career.  It's a career that's going strong and will hit next with a film that shouldn't be too much of a departure for Fincher (although remakes are new territory): The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  Fincher fans will be anticipating how this exciting filmmaker stretches himself into new strange and unusual realities for years to come.
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Modern Maestros: Aleksandr Sokurov

Maestro: Aleksandr Sokruov
Known For: critically acclaimed Russian art films
Influences: Tarkovsky, Tarkovsky and... well Tarkovsky

Masterpieces: Russian Ark
Disasters: none
Better than you remember: none, or all
Box Office: over 2 mil for Russian Ark

Art cinema is alive and well (and not as difficult to watch as the naysayers keep naysaying), and the lovers of such cinema are thankful that rather prolific Russian Aleksandr Sokurov has reached a point of notability where those of us who live in the western world can anticipate all of his films getting a release date (now if we could only do something about that back catalog.)  Sokurov, a long time pupil and friend to contemplative, languorous, spiritual poet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, the man who brought us Solaris, continues his mentor's work on a regular basis, churning out films that utilize the camera, and occasionally video to capture a unique perspective on the human condition, and not always in the domain of spirituality and death.  Yes, Sokurov himself admits that death is a significant theme of his, and yes he is responsible for 1990's The Second Circle, in which a man wanders through his home around his father's recently deceased body pondering the details of mortality and 1997's Mother and Son in which a man wanders through the nature outside the home of his dying mother, pondering the details of mortality (both films are brilliant I should add, especially the latter which was Sokruov's big (and by "big" I mean "of modest size") American breakthrough.) but Sokurov's recent films, while the spectre of death is always there (isn't it in all great drama?) focus more on people's perception of their place in the world.

Yes, Aleksandr Sokurov's films are becoming more accessible as well, while not sacrificing all of the great elements that make them art.  His two most recent films, Alexandra and The Sun still focus on a single person's experience of the mundanities (all the stuff that wouldn't make it into other films) of life.  But the settings in which he places his subjects are more unique, allowing for a bit more excitement, to use that term loosely but not lightly.  Alexandra follows a woman who visits her son's military station on the Russian/Chechen border.  The Sun examines the life of Japanese Emperor Hirohito during the ending days of World War II.  In that film Sokurov demonstrates how adept he is at playing with the camera's aesthetic eye to make his point.  In the film, the actions of Hirohito examining a fish or perplexedly accepting a diplomatic shipment of Hershey bars from the American forces don't tell the story as much as how the camera presents him doing these things.  And doing these things in his palace, he is presented as an almost god-like character, large in the frame, full of power.  But once in the presence of General McArthur, he is diminutive in the frame, overwhelmed by his surroundings.  For Sokurov, the visual is the tool.  He employed mirrors to distort the images in Mother and Son, creating surreal yet serene painting-like images.  For Russian Ark, his most famous film in America, he shot the entire elaborate film in one take using the camera as a first-person point of view.

Sokurov's cinematic exploration of man's place in the world will continue next, and quite appropriately, with his own take on Faust.  Though nothing is specifically in the works, expect more entries in his planned tetrology on historic world leaders (in which The Sun was the third part, Taurus is the second part (about Lenin), and Moloch was the first (Hitler)).  Expect them to find a friendly reception at a festival followed by a thankful release in the west.  For those of us who lament the days when "art cinema" was seen as a genre that meant neither "weird" nor "boring" the growing status of Aleksandr Sokurov after over twenty years is a promising sign.

Modern Maestros: Alfonso Cuarón

Maestro: Alfonso Cuarón
Known For: long takes, intellectual films that are sensuous and sensual.
Influences: American Noir, French New Wave, Orson Welles (it's always Orson Welles ain't it?)
Masterpieces: Children of Men
Disasters: none
Better than you remember: you probably love all of his stuff, but it might be time to revisit his good but lesser received films from the 90's.
Box Office: Almost 250 mil for Harry Potter but you knew that.
Favorite Actor: Not a lot of recurring actors, and by not a lot I mean, not any. Do you know of any? I don't.

Orson Welles often said that sustaining a take was how one separated the boys from the men. And through cinematic history the long shot has been employed as a tool of artistic showmanship in films renowned for their languorous and contemplative pacing. While I love almost all of them, I have a special kind of admiration for Alfonso Cuarón, whose film making technique utilizes uninterrupted takes in ways that are exciting, tense and filled with life. They are, unlike many artistic long shots, easy to miss at first since they don't draw attention to themselves as a device, but instead blend organically into the aesthetic of the film. The obvious choice for an example is the car chase scene in Children of Men. Cuarón's camera swirls around the car filled with our heroes (in a rig specially designed for the shot) providing an unflinching experience of growing tension. Certainly the scene could have been a series of fast-paced, chopped cuts. But while that may have increased adrenaline (not that the scene needed any more) we, the viewers would have lost our place in that car.

Children of Men

Just as a bloody shootout is the best example of Cuarón's style, it is a conflicted example of his themes. As Cuarón said when interviewed for the Oscars in 2006, "I believe in hope, but not a hoola, hoola, hope!" So car chases, and bleak futures are a necessity, but in Cuarón films there is always the slightest yet most powerful glimmer of hope where none seems likely. In a high concept just-barely pre-apocalyptic future there's just enough humanity left to sustain life. In a simple tale of hormone addled adolescents driving through a country filled with unrest toward a future of expected mediocrity there is the potential of love in unanticipated places. Even in Hogwarts wizard school where triumph over evil seems like a foregone conclusion, Cuarón brings a sense of naturalistic darkness which makes that triumph more rewarding than ever.

Y Tu Mamá También

Anyone highly anticipating how Alfonso Cuarón's next film will increase his ever growing status in the film community will have a long wait ahead of them. Gravity isn't expected out until 2012. The film will keep Cuarón in the realm of science fiction as it follows an astronauts attempts to return to earth and her daughter. Those of us expecting it with bated anticipation, are prepared for more stylistic audaciousness that beckons our emotional commitment and promises the hope of something slightly greater than the reality we know.
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Modern Maestros: Zhang Yimou

Robert here, with another entry in my series about great contemporary directors.

Maestro: Zhang Yimou
Known For: films about the lives of women in China and more recently wuxia epics.
Influences: American Noir, Chinese fantasy and mythology
Masterpieces: Raise the Red Lantern
Disasters: none
Better than you remember: If you're among those who think his recent films aren't as good as his older ones, you might be right, but if you think they're bad, then I'd say they fall into this category.
Box Office: 53 mil for Hero
Favorite Actor: the beautiful, ravishing, talented Gong Li

It's entirely possible that Zhang Yimou's greatest achievement of the past ten years had nothing to do with film. He garnered his largest audience and highest place on the world stage for directing the Opening Ceremonies to the Olympic Games. Those who saw the spectacle were blown away by the beauty and artistry. Those who knew of Zhang Yimou's work in the cinema, were also blown away, but not surprised. For over twenty years, Zhang has been making films with light and color and human passion and emotion as his cornerstones. Audiences who've discovered Zhang lately have found a series of gorgeously staged wuxia epics. Anyone quick to dismiss these films as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon clones or less substantial than Zhang's earlier films should take another look. Hero and House of Flying Daggers are among the most beautiful films of all time. Their produciton designs and cinematography are at times simply jaw dropping.

Has any director turned on a dime like Zhang Yimou has? Could his early films been any different from his recent ones? Well, "yes" to answer my own question. While there is indeed a gap between those films thematically, they all adhere to Zhang's powerful aesthetic. Consider 1992's Raise the Red Lantern and how its use of color to evoke emotion is really no different from Zhang's recent movies. Yes, the film has less color overall, but that simply sets up the amazing pop of red that accompanies the joy of the lanterns' arrivals (at the house of whichever wife is in the husband's favor that night). Zhang loves color and finds uses for it everywhere in his filmography. And just in case you worried that while his use of color has flourished, his penchant for emotionally evocative films has faded, right in the middle of epics, Zhang released the little seen Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, proving that he can still tug a heart string or two whenever he wants.

After a long break after the Olympic Ceremonies, Zhang returns with his latest film, A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop (a remake of the Coen's Blood Simple) and proves quite adept at noir influence as well. He is a man of many trades and faces, Zhang Yimou, all saturated in beauty and meaning. His next film The Love of the Hawthorn Tree will be released this month in China. It's another period drama/romance to continue to quell the fears of those who think Zhang's serious work is behind him. Although any lover of cinema will tell you, it doesn't matter what kind of movie Zhang is making next, whether it be a drama or adventure, noir or romance, or all four, it's release will be colored with excitement and anticipation.

Modern Maestros: Catherine Breillat

Robert here, with another entry in my series about great contemporary directors.

Maestro: Catherine Breillat
Known For: movies about sex
Influences: Chantal Akerman, Bertolucci
Masterpieces: Fat Girl
Disasters: Yes there are some films of hers that are disasters, perhaps Anatomy of Hell most of all. But you can't make an omelet...
Better than you remember: Fat Girl, The Last Mistress and Bluebeard (which conveniently will be the subjects of this post) are the good ones
Box Office: 1999's Romance broke a million.
Favorite Actor: Has made three films with actress Roxane Mesquida

Sex is complicated. In general, as a society we've decided to react to this by compartmentalizing sexuality into concepts that are easier to understand. There's the obscene or pornographic, the safe and loving, the dangerous, the forbidden, the passionate and so on in ways that seem to attach each separate sexual experience to a single emotion. Movies reflect this and create narratives around it. Virginity is to be kept by girls, lost by boys, sex without love is ultimately unfulfilling, desires often doom us. I don't mean to suggest that we're still stuck in a world defined by Victorian morality. We've come a great ways since then. But still, a happy ending usually means a wedding, not an orgy, because quite frankly we're not comfortable rooting for characters for whom an orgy would be a happy ending (and you might already be considering me some kind of pervert for suggesting it could be a happy ending). Catherine Breillat wants to tear all that down with a wrecking ball. Her films constantly seek to redefine our comfort levels, and demand that we question our preconceived notions about what a character's sexuality says about them.

Many of Breillat's films are sexually explicit, or at least explicitly sexual. Films that attack such subjects with such explicitness traditionally yield mixed results. Sometimes the audience becomes distracted by their prurient or prude sensibilities, sometimes the film gets distracted by it's own desire to shock. In other words, sometimes it's our fault and sometimes it's theirs. Breillat may have been doomed to forever have been "That French woman who makes movies with porn in them. Whatever." had she not broke through with 2001's Fat Girl. Consider the challenges issued by the film's plot. (Fat) Anais and her (pretty) sister Elena both dream about the loss of their virginity (could an American film pull this off without painting them as "tramps" or "troubled"?). Elena wants her first lover to love her. Anais wants anything but. When the movie ends, only Anais has gotten what she wants in the most foul way possible. Yet we the viewers can't really accept that her wishes have been filled. It's not possible. Why couldn't she have wanted love? We'd have been comfortable with that!

Since then, Breillat has put out two more great films. 2007's The Last Mistress in which Breillat utilizes a period piece to ponder how our misguided instinct to paint the sexually adventurous woman (brilliantly cast, wonderfully portrayed, thank you Asia Argento) into a devilish caricature still persists, and 2009's Bluebeard, in which the classic fairy tale is updated to make the murderous title character into a pretty lonely guy and his innocent bride into a rather petulant child. Each time she demands the audience ask of themselves: Who is the sinner? Who is the saint? Who deserves love and who deserves the consequences of their actions? The questions, seemingly endless are difficult and if you like difficult questions (and sex) you're bound to like Breillat's films. If not, you may find yourself happily retreating back into a world of simple sexuality, where sex for love is the ultimate goal, sex for lust is a forbidden but understandable diversion and people's sex lives remain properly hidden between their sheets. But Catherine Breillat will not be in that world, not unless she's swinging a wrecking ball.
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Modern Maestros: Mike Leigh

Robert here, with another entry in my series about great contemporary directors.

Maestro: Mike Leigh
Known For: modern kitchen sink dramas.
Influences: classic kitchen sink dramas.
Masterpieces: Secrets & Lies

Disasters: some less memorable entries, but certainly no disasters
Better than you remember: depends on how you remember things.
Box Office: Secrets & Lies with over 13 mil (such is the power of Oscar publicity)
Favorite Actor: Leslie Manville

Mike Leigh often gets short changed as the king of crying. This is undoubtedly because his two best known films of the past twenty years (thanks to a pair of best actress nominations) have been the copiously, though not excessively weepy Secrets & Lies and Vera Drake. Which is why it was such a shame that Sally Hawkins failed to be nominated for Happy-Go-Lucky. Aside from the fact that she was great (usually an afterthought for the Academy) it certainly couldn't have hurt to have drawn attention to the fact that not all of Leigh's films are devastatingly depressing. In fact, the proper constant of Leigh's films isn't sadness but insight, honesty and the routinely fantastic performances that bring it all about.

Mike Leigh is one of the few filmmakers still dedicated to the idea of kitchen sink realism. His films frame the messy imperfect lives of the Britons with sincerity, never judgment. The principles of the great British filmmakers of the 1960's which seemed so mod and truthful then an have seemingly gone out of style are sill alive in his movies. While his themes may seem old fashioned his method is one rare enough to seem perpetually modern (though it secretly isn't). Leigh's films are created through dramatic improvisation, which requires first and foremost a total trust of the actors' abilities to build, understand and evolve their characters to create reality. As a director this requires such a high level of giving and trust in your actors, it's really no surprise that few filmmakers employ it. For most movie makers are craftsmen turning out scripts, auteurs declaring a vision, but Leigh has taken the process to a truly communal place. When you consider the quality of his actors, it's really evident how the result is usually phenomenal.

The lives and characters embodied by these actors are usually the misfits of society (then again, who isn't?). Whether it's Naked's criminal Johnny, Vera Drake the abortionist, or eternal optimist Poppy, Leigh and his actor's characters live in a world that seems to have no simple place for them. Whether they deserve the consequences of this are quite beside the fact for Leigh. He's more interested in understanding people than making overreaching statements. And through his insight, and the insight of his collaborators we come to understand these people as well.

The trailer for Another Year

For his next film, Another Year Leigh continues to demonstrate his interest in people who seem to have found peace and the world that continually, inevitably antagonizes them. It received positive reviews in Cannes for not only Leigh but for, you guessed it, the performers.
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Modern Maestros: Woody Allen

Robert here, back with another entry in my series on great contemporary directors.

Maestro: Woody Allen
Known For: witty comedies about life, dramas about love, often though not exclusively set in New York
Influences: Early comedy owes much to cartoonist Jules Feiffer, drama much to Ingmar Bergman.
Masterpieces: Anything I write here is going to get me in trouble. But let me say I agree with the popular sentiment that Annie Hall is most of all. Also Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors and maybe The Purple Rose of Cairo.

Disasters: Disaster is such a strong word and there are several that may (yet may not) qualify.
Better than you remember: And for everyone there's at least one Allen film that the world seems to loathe but you love. For me it's Scoop (recently).
Box Office: Annie Hall is tops with 136 mil.
Favorite Actor:You may think it's Diane Keaton (7) or Mia Farrow (13) but in fact Woody Allen's favorite actor is Woody Allen, having starred in 17 Woody Allen movies.

Woody Allen is nothing if not a victim of his own prolificness. Anyone who steps up to the plate as much as he does is going to strike out a lot. But the hits he gets are often home runs, or at least triples (someone help me before I stretch this metaphor out any more). My standard for this series has been to ask whether a director has made at least two notable quality films in the past ten years. And though it's fair to say that he's been missing more than hitting lately, Woody Allen certainly meets that standard. The two films of note here, of course, are Match Point and Vicky Christina Barcelona, though I also find Scoop to be just as good as both of them. I mention that not because I can really make a case for Scoop, but to point out how Allen's "bad" films even have worthwhile elements that speak to people. And so there are people who think Melinda and Melinda was great or who champion Whatever Works or Cassandra's Dream. The question with each new Woody Allen film isn't whether or not it'll be wholly embraced by the critical community and play for awards but also whether it'll be a small gem that you and you alone seem to appreciate.

Allen's career has been much discussed, especially in the 70's 80's and 90's. His thoughtful New York comedies, his sentimental love notes to jazz and early cinema, his Bergmanesque dramas have all been analyzed and analyzed again. To focus on his recent career is to focus on a man abroad, outside a city more closely associated with him than perhaps any other modern man. The two previous aforementioned films of note came from England and Spain respectively. Thematically they are about the nature of passion and how it is rooted in the seductive call of the foreign away from the warm and safe loving embrace of home. This is what Woody Allen thinks about when he's in Europe. While the man's heart clearly belongs to New York City, it is obvious that his experiences flirting with locations that belong to the hearts of others has breathed a new tilt into his career with interesting results.

A brief note about Allen's "lesser" films of recent years. While they may not have achieved a critical consensus, they still explore classic Woody Allen territory, touching on issues of love, loneliness, crime and guilt. They still feature quality acting and classically glamorous cinematography. It's comforting that Woody, if not consistently great, is still consistently Woody. And that's why we keep coming back and rooting for another hit. It's why his movies are still embraced and anticipated and rolled out at high status film festivals. It seems odd to suggest that perhaps more than any working director, Mr Allen's bad films are almost always worth seeing. Yet it requires a special kind of talent to accomplish that and it's worth celebrating. Allen's next film, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger premiered in Cannes to pretty good reviews and will arrive for our consumption soon. If you're not excited for that, the next film after his next film will feature French First Lady Carli Bruni and is hotly anticipated for the fact. That's the thing about Woody Allen. There's always another shot at greatness around the corner.
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Modern Maestros: Edgar Wright

Robert here, back with another entry in my series on great contemporary directors.

Maestro: Edger Wright
Known For: Extremely funny revisionist takes on pop genres.
Influences: Possibly everything.
Masterpieces: Hot Fuzz
Disasters: nothing, of course not.
Better than you remember: Not unless you didn't like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

Box Office: 23 mil for Hot Fuzz
Favorite Actor: Simon Pegg and Nick Frost of course.

"The characters are so, kind of, like...their lives are so governed by pop culture and media and stuff that they can only think in those terms," says Edgar Wright of his films.  And I'm glad he does.  It saves me a lot of work this week.  All directors should be required to make such concise statements about their work.  It's true, in Edgar Wright's movies reality is bound by pop culture.  But Wright is on to something, because in actual life, reality is also bound by pop culture reality.  It doesn't matter whether you have a preference for the popular, cult, nerdy or esoteric, it's difficult to make it through the day without seeing a parallel to some song, book or (usually for people like us) movie.  It's a symptom of our constant 24/7 media, internet, streaming video saturated lives (though it probably began with VHS).  It's not necessarily a bad thing though it's accepted as a given, not much to talk about.  Except Edgar Wright; he wants to talk about it.

You eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube  -Howard Beale via Peter Finch via Paddy Chayefsky

Discussions of culture's grip on our realities are traditionally gloom and doom and eternal damnation. Not to Wright who clearly relishes how much his world reflects his favorite movies.  In fact in his films it's almost impossible to tell which is reflecting which any more.  In Shaun of the Dead Wright presents a reality where people start off zombified in life.  In Hot Fuzz, Nick Frost's Danny after being admonished for thinking police life is really like Hollywood blockbusters, turns out to be right.  What seems to be most important is that Edgar Wright is having fun.  He's happy to be living a culture-fueled life and this joy is apparent in his films.  The man gives hope that the satire (a term that almost seems too derisive to really apply to his work) is not dead, in a reality when that genre seems relegated to extended Saturday Night Live sketches or pop culture mockery. 

Hotly anticipated this week is Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, in which the director steps out of his comfort zone (in that he's not doing a movie satire with Penn and Frost) and back into his comfort zone (in that he's still exploring the same themes but with video games as a stand in).  Turns out it's really impossible to escape this idea that our lives are defined by the culture we consume.  Have you ever thought about what locations would be the dungeons and what people the big bads in the video game of your life (or who'd be the regulars and guest stars if your life was a sitcom? or what actors would be cast if your life was a film?).  It's how we view reality any more, and it's funny.  And perhaps it really is the downfall of society.  But that's okay, because we'll be watching it all through Edgar Wright's awesome tinted glasses.

Modern Maestros: Bela Tarr

Robert here, back with another entry in my series on great contemporary directors.  I recognize that I'm following up last week's demanding foreign director with another this week. While I usually like to break up the more esoteric filmmakers, something seemed fitting about putting Tarr and Weerasethakul back-to-back.  They're so similar yet so different.

Maestro: Bela Tarr
Known For: philosophical films with long takes, mostly his seven hour film Satantango.
Influences: Tarkovsky is obvious.  Accroding to Tarr, Rainer Werner Fassbinder most of all.
Masterpieces: Satantango and Werckmeister Harmonies
Disasters: none
Better than you remember: none

Box Office: numbers not available.

 

It may be required by law that every article, post, discussion about Hungarian director Bela Tarr mention Susan Sontag, the great critic who championed him as one of the few high points remaining in modern cinema, saying of his opus Satantango, "Devastating, enthralling for every minute of its seven hours. I'd be glad to see it every year for the rest of my life."  In many ways that statement elevated knowledge of the film and it's director to new levels of awareness in the movie-lover community and as the movie made the rounds at festivals, cinematheques, and art theaters became something of an endurance test and badge of honor for those who've taken the plunge (which, and I mean to brag, I did two years ago and it remains the best cinematic experience I've ever had).  By comparison, Tarr's more recent two films have seemed short and tight, clocking in at under three hours each and still featuring all the trademarks of a Tarr film.

The apocalyptic drab town of Werckmeister Harmonies

First and foremost among those trademarks are Bela Tarr's nearly infamous long shots.  According to Tarr, long shots are preferable to allow the audience to immerse themselves deeply into the world of the film.  Tarr wants to ease you into his realities and allow you to live in them fully for the most optimum emotional effect (although often times it may take a while to allow ourselves to become accustomed to the pacing, don't worry the film's first shot usually provides that time, like the almost iconic opening to Satantango.)  These slow realities are filled with Tarr's (and regular co-writer Laszlo Krasznahorkai's) philosophies and meditations on spirituality and the nature of man.  While that might sound like a drag, it all comes together quite successfully for Tarr whose films do seem to creep into your subconscious and leave you ponderous for days (or longer).

Tilda Swinton: the most "mainstream" actress he's worked with.

Tarr's been making films for over three decades but (like Weerasethakul last week) is finally starting to raise his stature in the cinematic landscape.  His back catalog has recently been released on DVD and his latest, The Man From London, positioned itself as a more accessible (despite an opening hour of silence) noir genre experiment featuring Tilda Swinton.  Unfortunately reviews were mixed and distribution has suffered, just as Tarr could use an extra bump.  His next yet to be released feature The Turin Horse was hotly anticipted for Cannes this year but it was not to be.  Still hopes remain high.  Tarr's influence on modern film, independent film, and in particular Gus Van Sant's recent movies is undeniable.  And that influence stands to grow as the man continues to put out difficult masterpieces that challenge the viewer and the medium and find exposure to a larger and larger audience who will discover themselves to be grateful to have been exposed to the brilliance of Bela Tarr.

Modern Maestros: Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Robert here, back with another entry in my series on great contemporary directors.

Maestro: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Known For: Difficult, often dreamlike films about the changing times.
Influences: Edward Yang, Maya Deren, Abbas Kiarostami, according to the man himself.
Masterpieces: Syndromes and a Century
Disasters: none
Better than you remember: I'm not sure how this could possibly apply to AW
Box Office: Almost $47 thousand in the U.S. for Tropical Malady

I come into this as a great admirer of, though by no means an expert on Apichatpong Weerasethakul. When I started this series almost a year ago I knew I'd get to Weerasethakul (who goes by the nickname "Joe" henceforth) eventually. Back then awareness of him in the cinephile community felt spotty at best. Now as the most recent winner of the Palme d'Or he's poised to take the next step toward notability (though I wouldn't expect his films to take any further steps toward accessibility). Still, I encourage anyone well versed in the man's films to please join in the conversation. What I'm trying to say is if anyone knows how to pronounce his name, that information would be super. Like all of the Asian directors we've discussed here, Joe is primarily interested in the intersection of the past and present. How love manifests itself in this space is his primary concern, almost all of his films touch on it even if a bit. Not that Joe has limited himself to just one topic. The changing landscape of Asian culture, technology, society and spirituality have all found their way into his films.

Structurally, most of Joe's films are split into two distinct sections. As the viewer, we're meant to focus not as much on the narrative within each half, but their comparative properties. Consider Syndromes and a Century, where a series of seemingly unrelated dreamlike happenings inhabit two hospitals in two different time frames. The manifestation of human nature, mystery, longing seems to remain a constant through the years, but as time progresses, the presence of monks dissipates, the threat of eerily personified technology grows and the love story tilts ever slightly toward lust. What definitive statements these all add up to are for us to decide. Similarly, the double story in Tropical Malady (the first of which follows a gay romance, the second of which a man lost in the woods, who seems to manifest himself as a spirit). And so we're meant to ponder, what do these stories mean not separately but as a whole, thrust together in one film. Perhaps Joe is juxtaposing the animalistic qualities of love with those of spirituality. Does the modern world that's shunned spirituality still maintain its essence through an embrace of love?

If I feel more concrete on Syndromes and a Century than other Weerasethakul films it's only because I've seen that one three or four times. The others once, not nearly enough to unravel. But Joe's films have this amazing quality that invites the viewer to keep coming back to his films, impenitrable that they may be. If you've not experienced them, I invite you to drop your ideas of what constraints the medium may have and be lost in his world. After all, in the end, the purpose of a film isn't to be a brain teaser (well some perhaps), it's meant to invite us into a new reality for a time. Whether we understand or decipher (or even want to) all the elements of that reality is up to us. I don't expect Apichatpong Weerasethakul to become a popular director even after winning the Palme with his latest, Unclee Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, but his mark on the modern movie landscape is both indescribable and inescapable.

Modern Maestros: Ang Lee

Robert here, back with another entry in my series on great contemporary directors.

Maestro: Ang Lee
Known For: Prestigious, emotional, subtle character dramas.
Influences: according to Ang Lee himself, Bergman, Antonioni and Billy Wilder.
Masterpieces: Brokeback Mountain of course.  Maybe Sense and Sensibility too.
Disasters: Taking Woodstock wasn't notable enough to really be a disaster.  Not sure if that's worse.
Better than you remember: I maintain that whatever people dislike about Hulk, the real driving force against that movie was the special effects.  If those were better, people would be more likely to overlook other things.

Box Office: That being said, Hulk is his highest grosser with 132 Million.

It's said that no film is about the time it's set as much as it is about the time it's made.  For Ang Lee, whose films for the past fifteen years have all but one been period pieces, this is not just a truth but a great convenience.  His stories of evolving social, sexual, and class mores and how they sow despair are more easily embraced by a society that sees someone else's ugly reflection in the mirror.  But make no mistake, it is a mirror we're looking into.  Historical settings are also a useful way for Lee to keep his films modern without being dated by by distracting social or political messages.  In fact, for Lee, social and political messages are never the point, they're merely a means to an end.  The end is people.  Consider how many evil, one-dimensional homophobic characters Lee presented in Brokeback Mountain to underscore a "society bad!" message.  Can't really think of any?  Because Lee's not as interested in criticizing society as much as he is understanding the individuals whose desires run directly into the wall of its constraints. 

Lee's characters are sad, conflicted, confused, repressed and occasionally overrun with emotion, but never one dimensional to make a point. They are the heart of his films and the embodiment of his themes.  This is why Zhang Ziyi's rebellious Jen is the emotional center of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  It's why the Dashwood sisters turned out to be perfect ciphers of social restrictiveness for Lee.  It's why reviewers (no offense to anyone) who complained that Lust, Caution was too subtle were surprisingly off the mark.  As if anyone should go into an Ang Lee movie expecting anything other than bound up emotions.  That film also has the distinction of owning perhaps the perfect title for an Ang Lee film.  The two things he comes back to again and again in his characters: caution... and lust.  And since we're talking about lust, let's.  It's the most primary element of Lee's films I haven't mentioned yet.  After all, lust and love are two of the most primal and powerful emotions we have, and the two emotions you least want suppressed by the reality around you.

From suburban key parties to wuxia legends, Ang Lee's characters' dramas are eternally caught up in the the conflict between their desires and the world's demands.  Fore Lee, focusing on such passion is a great way to immediately involve the audience.  We consider our own passions and the realities that would deny them to us.  This universal experience allows Lee to jump into a wide number of genres, timelines and characters, almost always with success.  It doesn't hurt that the man is a fantastic director of his actors (a theme that keeps coming up in these Modern Maestro pieces).  It is, after all, the actor who serves as the gateways for the audience.  For Lee, his actors portray their heartache with such intensity they they make watching anguish into a profound joy. Which is why we'll always be looking forward to the next Ang Lee film.

Modern Maestros: Errol Morris

Robert here, back with another entry in my series on great contemporary directors.

Maestro: Errol Morris
Known For: Documentaries about politicial, social and strange topics.
Influences: More film noir and French New Wave than classic docs.
Masterpieces: The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War and Mr. Death.
Disasters:Well his one narrative feature The Dark Wind sorta qualifies.
Better than you remember: History seems to recall all of his docs with fondness, as it should be.
Box Office: Just over 4 mil for The Fog of War

The alarming intimacy of the Interrotron, the impact of wildly composed visual asides, the clang of a Philip Glass (or similar) score... few documentarians bring a specific personal style to their films like Errol Morris. Yet his films could never be dismissed with that most common of eye-rolling declarations "style over substance." Morris's films are rooted in the revelations of his interview, utilizing his stylization as punctuation or underlining, but never the main course. This allows the interviews to simmer and rise eventually bubbling over with genuine insight and occasionally truth. Most documentarians will tell you that their work has more in common with journalism than fiction filmmaking. Morris considers himself not a journalist but a detective filmmaker, always seeking out new roads to reality. Yet it's not the sensational that Morris seeks (although perhaps the odd sometimes). He has eschewed the aggressive pursuit tactics of someone like Michael Moore, preferring to point his camera and let his subjects comfortably reveal. Part of his trick lies in his interratron, a device of his inventing that allows the subject to look into a monitor showing Morris's face, that is in fact a camera. Subjects know they're on camera, but by looking at Morris instead of a lens, they often let their guard down just a bit. Such was the case with The Fog of War's Robert S. McNamara and Mr. Death's Fred Leuchter who come across as more candid than usual (though still slippery.)

More impressively, Morris (before the use of the interrotron but with the use of his cunning interview skills) gets the witnesses and key players in the arrest of a man to slowly reveal the evidence of his innocence in The Thin Blue Line. This leads us to possibly Morris's favorite topic: perception vs reality. He's intrigued by the concept. If you ever have a free afternoon, stop on by his blog on the New York Times webpage where he goes on about such things as how an image can never be false. Even if the image is fake, it's a true representation of a fakery. It is only the concept that is applied to that image that can be untrue. And so on and on, the issue of perception fascinates Errol Morris. He's fascinated by the perceptions that lead to an innocent man's conviction, or those that lead a person to disbelieve the Holocaust. He's interested in how photographs can sway the public's perceptions of an event in wartime and the man behind one of the biggest perception-fueled events in history, the Vietnam War. Even in a less serious vein, he's interested in how unusual people perceive the world.

The quest for truth through the prism of perception makes Morris one of the most intriguing, intellectual documentarians working today. With documentaries becoming a bigger part of the cinematic landscape, Morris has seemed ahead of the curve. In fact, he still does, since no one has yet to make a film quite like his. Perhaps non content to have narrative nonfiction as a black mark on his name, Morris's next project will find him diverging from the world of documentaries once again. As a fan, I hope it goes better this time.