Grumpy Old Directors

A subforum to discuss film culture and criticism.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

#1 Post by zedz » Thu May 18, 2006 8:29 pm

Accentuating the positive:

Dreyer keeps it up till the end with Gertrud (maybe not a majority opinion).

Rohmer is still batting away with relative consistency (and even some unexpected innovation in The Lady and the Duke).

I find L'Argent a big finale. I'm not so fond of Le diable probablement, but a single film doesn't make for a decline.

And to end on an appropriately curmudgeonly note: she's wildly idiosyncratic, but Kira Muratova has made at least one inimitable masterpiece in each of the last five decades. Chekhovian Motifs would probably rub a lot of viewers up any manner of wrong ways, but it shows that she's still at the height of her peculiar powers.

Noting all of the great directors who have declined into mediocre or frankly dire production in their twilight (or even early afternoon) years would be depressing and argumentative (and OK, I concede that it's already official that Woody Allen and Federico Fellini never made a bad film, not even Celebrity), but They Are Legion (one of Scorsese's favourite films, I hear).

P.S. this should probably be in 'Old Films' - and who are you calling 'old', David?

marty

#2 Post by marty » Thu May 18, 2006 11:18 pm

Ingmar Bergman - Saraband is great!

User avatar
sevenarts
Joined: Tue May 09, 2006 7:22 pm
Contact:

#3 Post by sevenarts » Fri May 19, 2006 12:10 am

marty wrote:Ingmar Bergman - Saraband is great!
it was at least good, to be sure.

robert altman shows every sign of continuing strong well into his later years, prairie home companion looks like it's going to be pure vintage altman.

godard is an arguable case, but the very least you can say is that he's remained creative and intriguing through all his various phases.

herzog is maybe not really old yet, but he's certainly had a long career and i think his recent documentary work is as strong as ever, the man shows no signs of slowing up or losing his touch.

kubrick's final film is my favorite of his.


i'm not very grumpy i guess.

bufordsharkley
Joined: Sat Nov 05, 2005 2:08 am

#4 Post by bufordsharkley » Sun May 21, 2006 11:28 pm

Add to the list of great directors, late in their career, Fritz Lang.

The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse, while not the equal of the first two in the series, is still quite tremendous, and tremendous fun. Lang still had a load of inventiveness, as well as craft, even in his last film.

...It anticipated almost everything that the James Bond series tried, and as a film, outdistanced all of 'em.

It's similar to the first two, in the breakneck pacing, but is notable for its utter, brilliant ridiculousness. The shooting-in-the-van scene may be the most casually nutszoid thing I've ever seen.

A late, underappreciated masterpiece.

User avatar
zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

#5 Post by zedz » Mon May 22, 2006 12:10 am

Oh well, I guess this thread proves the first rule of the internet: There is No Such Thing as Consensus.

The premise of this discussion isn't about directors who still manage to make the odd good film in their later years, but ones who manage to continue performing consistently at the top of their game right up until the end. (This is the sort of theing that used top be taken as read by extreme auteurists).

I'd consider Herzog and Altman to be two strong examples of the general rule, rather than exceptions. It's surely a minority opinion that Altman's body of work over the last ten years is the equal of his 1970s output, and if you consider Herzog's fiction films of the past twenty years, it's a pretty sorry story. Documentary-wise, he still manages to churn out excellence at a regular (but by no means clockwork) rate, but even here he's surely far patchier than during his 70s heyday (Fata Morgana, Land of Silence and Darkness, La Soufriere, The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner: that's a tough run to beat).

At the risk of forever alienating David, I'm afraid I find Lang's late German films completely mediocre compared to best of his early German and American work (ducks to dodge an Ignatzian brick).

User avatar
Joe Buck
Joined: Mon Dec 05, 2005 6:59 pm
Location: New York

#6 Post by Joe Buck » Mon May 22, 2006 6:48 pm

I didn't like Marnie. Or Topaz. Aside from the Hotel sequence.

I think Frenzy was quite good.

I also find alot to like in "Torn Curtain". I know I am in the minority there....

Family Plot? Harmless. I don't mind it. Not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but it moves along pretty well.

User avatar
GringoTex
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 5:57 am

#7 Post by GringoTex » Mon May 22, 2006 7:09 pm

davidhare wrote:
the only directors who really hold it together for the big finale are Bunuel, Ozu and Mizo. Any others? Manuel de Oliviera? (and he isn't even dead yet.)

There are many others, of course.

Come on whiners!!!!
Becker, Vigo, and Christopher MacClaine.

I know- I'm cheating.

User avatar
justeleblanc
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:05 pm
Location: Connecticut

#8 Post by justeleblanc » Mon May 22, 2006 7:25 pm

Preminger gets a bad wrap for Skidoo and everything after, but these are some of my favorite Premingers.

Orson Welles of course! F for Fake, Filming Othello, Chimes at Midnight!

Lubitsch stayed fresh toward the end. Cluny Brown and Heaven Can Wait are absolute gems.

John Ford.... Louis Malle.... Polanski.... it doesn't appear to be too uncommon for directors to keep it up when they get old.

User avatar
sevenarts
Joined: Tue May 09, 2006 7:22 pm
Contact:

#9 Post by sevenarts » Mon May 22, 2006 8:42 pm

zedz wrote:and if you consider Herzog's fiction films of the past twenty years, it's a pretty sorry story. Documentary-wise, he still manages to churn out excellence at a regular (but by no means clockwork) rate, but even here he's surely far patchier than during his 70s heyday (Fata Morgana, Land of Silence and Darkness, La Soufriere, The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner: that's a tough run to beat).
i'm not going to argue you about herzog's latest fiction films, but it seems to me not so much a case of him falling off in the usual sense as largely losing interest in the form, especially as compared with documentary. i mean, how many fiction films has he even made in the last 20 years? three? i'd say it's a clear-cut case that herzog is just infinitely more interested in documentary subjects at this point, and that probably shows through a bit when he does do a fiction project. i still have a lot of later herzog to see, but as far as documentaries go i'd certainly rank little dieter, lessons of darkness and white diamond up there with his finest documentary work, and even with his earliest features. and grizzly man was great as well, and i'm very much looking forward to wild blue yonder and wheel of time. i think at the very least lessons and dieter should be in any list of his best films.

User avatar
GringoTex
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 5:57 am

#10 Post by GringoTex » Tue May 23, 2006 8:25 am

davidhare wrote: Aldrich is a staggering case of incredible talent gone awry later in his career. How someone capable of making Kiss me Deadly could turn out something as grotesque as the Choirboys is beyond me. Only Hustle of the late pics is of interest, and even it is compromised to a degree by not great production values (but the casting of Deneuve and Reynolds is inspired.)
Claude Chabrol offers an eloquent defense of later Altman:
Dialectic and wiliness: the new Aldrich had arrived.

What followed was rich with irony. The next twelve films [after Dirty Dozen], pure jewels, made either within or outside the system -- unforgettable, iconoclastic works of admirable energy and daring -- were received by his old admirers (apart from, perhaps, Positif) with a shocked expression. Of course it's difficult to accept, out of the blue, red Indians toying with skulls, pathetic old lesbian alcoholics, mocking Japanese officers, cops in silk stockings and suspenders, neuropathic soldiers indulging in nuvlear blackmail, and violent femaile wrestlers.

But it's part and parcel of the Aldrich dialectic that this world, alas, is not made for weaklings. It's either him or us.

User avatar
HerrSchreck
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am

#11 Post by HerrSchreck » Tue May 23, 2006 8:42 am

Vigo is more than cheating... died practically a boy with 3, more like 2.5 features under his belt!

Glad to see you recovered your identity there, Lumperdito, uh senor Hare.

Shnauzer! You're not that sensitive... if you know what I mean, if I guessed what you meant by the moniker.....

User avatar
Gigi M.
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2005 5:09 pm
Location: Santo Domingo, Dominican Rep

#12 Post by Gigi M. » Tue May 23, 2006 8:46 am

John Huston was great until the very end. Except for Annie, his later films are great if not amazing.

Victory (1981)
Under the Volcano (1984)
Prizzi's Honor (1985)
The Dead (1987)

What a great farewell

User avatar
HerrSchreck
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am

#13 Post by HerrSchreck » Tue May 23, 2006 9:59 am

Indeed! THE DEAD may be the most moving sign-off by a director in the annals of filmdom. I remember my mom taking me to see that when it came out, and how blown away I was. Just a sublime film. Has anyone seen the Kino-released doc JOHN HUSTON AND THE DUBLINERS? It's a made-on-set documentary about the making of the film, presumably with access to all involved. They released it somewhere around the same time as VISIONS OF LIGHT, I believe. Not sure if they have it on DVD, but definitely VHS (but not in sweden, so discs are allowed :wink: ).

User avatar
tryavna
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:38 pm
Location: North Carolina

#14 Post by tryavna » Tue May 23, 2006 10:27 am

gigimonagas wrote:John Huston was great until the very end. Except for Annie, his later films are great if not amazing.

Victory (1981)
Under the Volcano (1984)
Prizzi's Honor (1985)
The Dead (1987)

What a great farewell
I agree, and I'd also add that, although The Dead (deservedly) garners most of the attention paid to very late Huston, Under the Volcano is just as superb a film in its own way. It's resolutely anti-nostalgic in contrast to The Dead, but it's as fine an example of how to film an "unfilmable" novel as you're likely to come across. Of course, I think Huston ranks among the finest cinematic adapters of great literature ever -- from popular entertainments like Maltese Falcon and Man Who Would Be King to thoughtful "problem" stories like Red Badge of Courage and Night of the Iguana to more self-consciously artistic efforts like The Dead and Under the Volcano.

User avatar
tavernier
Joined: Sat Apr 02, 2005 7:18 pm

#15 Post by tavernier » Tue May 23, 2006 11:48 am

tryavna wrote:
gigimonagas wrote:John Huston was great until the very end. Except for Annie, his later films are great if not amazing.

Victory (1981)
Under the Volcano (1984)
Prizzi's Honor (1985)
The Dead (1987)

What a great farewell
I agree, and I'd also add that, although The Dead (deservedly) garners most of the attention paid to very late Huston, Under the Volcano is just as superb a film in its own way. It's resolutely anti-nostalgic in contrast to The Dead, but it's as fine an example of how to film an "unfilmable" novel as you're likely to come across. Of course, I think Huston ranks among the finest cinematic adapters of great literature ever -- from popular entertainments like Maltese Falcon and Man Who Would Be King to thoughtful "problem" stories like Red Badge of Courage and Night of the Iguana to more self-consciously artistic efforts like The Dead and Under the Volcano.
Can someone explain to me what is so special about The Dead? I found it to be Huston's biggest disappointment and a complete comedown after Prizzi.

User avatar
chaddoli
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 11:41 pm
Location: New York City
Contact:

#16 Post by chaddoli » Tue May 23, 2006 1:54 pm

John Cassavetes. Love Streams.

Definitely among Cassavetes very best work. A strange film to be sure, but a great one.

User avatar
justeleblanc
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:05 pm
Location: Connecticut

#17 Post by justeleblanc » Tue May 23, 2006 2:13 pm

chaddoli wrote:John Cassavetes. Love Streams.

Definitely among Cassavetes very best work. A strange film to be sure, but a great one.
Yes but sandwiched between two weaker efforts, not to mention he wasn't that old.

But is this me or is this sounding a lot like a List.

User avatar
chaddoli
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 11:41 pm
Location: New York City
Contact:

#18 Post by chaddoli » Tue May 23, 2006 2:35 pm

Well I don't think Big Trouble is technically considered a true Cassavetes film. I haven't seen it, but I remember Ray Carney writing about how it wasn't actually "his."

User avatar
zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

#19 Post by zedz » Tue May 23, 2006 10:29 pm

justeleblanc wrote: But is this me or is this sounding a lot like a List.
Agreed. I guess definitions of greatness are so variable and contestable that Senor Lumpo's and my thesis is never going to progress beyond a list of specific disagreements along the lines of "Well, I thought The Osterman Weekend was pretty good." What I was hoping for was more of an interrogation of old auteurist assumptions, with its no-exit pantheons.

I still think the list of uncontestable late masters is pretty small.

User avatar
zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

#20 Post by zedz » Wed May 24, 2006 12:18 am

davidhare wrote:I still think an interesting direction for this thread is the REASONS for an artist's decline.
Sure, but I don't think we'll ever get there if people don't accept the fact of the decline in the first place, or recognise it as the norm.

What the hell, here goes. . .

Some reasons that spring to mind are:
- loss of key collaborators
- complacency / staleness
- failing health
- loss of power / authority

The first one has already been invoked in the case of Hitchcock, but I'd be interested in exploring the second.

It seems significant to me that he would go from making two of his most innovative and experimental films - in terms of narrative form, mode of production, use of special effects, and method of exhibition - in Psycho and The Birds, to films that are simply lazy in key ways.

Even in Marnie, so good on most of the levels that count, there are slapdash process shots, and that wharf backdrop that even the art director wanted to scrap. I wonder if the special effects work on The Birds was so draining and tedious (we know how impatient Hitch was when it came to the execution of his ideas) that he rebelled. In Torn Curtain, the process work is even more intrusively awful.

Another key factor, which may be related to the fourth, above, is the double blow Hitch's ego took with the critical response to The Birds and Marnie. Hence his retreat to the theoretically 'safer' terrain of Torn Curtain (an international spy thriller with two huge stars). When this doesn't work, it looks like he's flailing (Topaz), and then he engineers a much more strategic retreat (a 'wrong man' film, with a frisson of Psychotic explicitness, which even returns Hitch to England) with Frenzy. The result is a much better film, but it's certainly not on the level of his last great works, if only in terms of their originality. And I'm afraid I can't see Family Plot as much more than an embarrassing mess - even its runaway-car set piece is inane.

User avatar
zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

#21 Post by zedz » Wed May 24, 2006 1:06 am

davidhare wrote:I actually like the Boston ship/wharf backdrop in Marnie - I love it for its dreamy unreality and it's pairing with those ghastly children singing menacing nursery rhymes at the top and tail of the movie.
You're not alone, and it doesn't actually bother me as much as the sloppy driving shots, but I draw the line at the Truffautesque hailing of every technical problem as the Deliberate Decision of Genius. ("Ah, but the really bad process shots are intentional. He wants to remind us that we're watching a movie." Oh yeah, I forgot. Whenever I normally hop on a bus I'm surrounded by Julie Andrews and a bunch of bad actors.)

User avatar
Dylan
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:28 pm

#22 Post by Dylan » Wed May 24, 2006 1:52 am

Hitchcock's use of matte paintings and backdrops was about 50/50, sometimes breathtaking, sometimes caught in 'matte painting hell,' which is still 1,000,000 times better than the CGI hell of now. "Marnie's" mattes are fine (though the best mattes in that film are completely unnoticeable...indeed I probably wouldn't have noticed half of them had I not studied a lot of Albert Whitlock's matte shots as a kid), and that's a good film, too.

I actually think the mattes in "Torn Curtain" are some of the finest in a Hitchcock film (as is that wonderful murder scene)...I also really like Newman and Andrews, but (and this is really the only film I feel this way about) I have a difficult time getting past the fact that Bernard Herrmann's score was rejected. Hitchcock was somewhat crazy to just burst in there, cancel the recording session, send the musicians home, and fire Bernard Herrmann on the spot just because his score didn't have "a tune." John Addison's replacement score sounds like more a Henry Mancini score, which means it's good music but it doesn't fit the film. The worst part about this is that Herrmann wrote a great score for it that the film really needs. Hitchcock was under a lot of pressure at the time to have songs in his films, and Universal urged him to hire more popular composers. John Addison won an Oscar for "Tom Jones." Maurice Jarre for "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Zhivago." Henry Mancini (original choice for Frenzy) had three Oscars and several nominations under his belt. After Mancini was fired Hitchcock got Ron Goodwin, one of the best selling composers of the 60s. John Williams, who scored "Family Plot," won an Oscar for "Fiddler on the Roof" and at the time had an Oscar nomination every year since the late 60s. Actually, all of these post Herrmann Hitch scores are good, but they don't come close Herrmann.

With that said, I think "Frenzy" isa really good film, and "Topaz" is probably Hitchcock's worst.
Last edited by Dylan on Fri Jan 21, 2011 11:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Dylan
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:28 pm

#23 Post by Dylan » Wed May 24, 2006 3:03 am

All the town shots are a mixture of location and outdoor sets.
I know for a fact there are at least 50 matte shots in "The Birds" because I watched those shots over and over as a kid and, around the same age, I met and discussed those shots with some matte artists (again, maybe I only notice these because I was looking for them at the time). The most successful of the mattes in "The Birds" is definitely the final shot, which is very nice.
I have to confess I love, if not all his process shots, at least the determination to remain in the studio which gives his mise-en-scene complete freedom. And all that ended with Marnie.
Not quite...say what you will about it, but "Torn Curtain," with its museum sequence, is actually Hitchcock's most radical use of Albert Whitlock's matte paintings (I mean, shit, he has Paul Newman literally walking and running inside of several matte shots, one after another...yeah it's kind of hokey, but also kind of neat). Such extensive use of mattes only really lasted three films ("The Birds," "Marnie," and "Torn Curtain"). But after "Torn Curtain" Hitchcock limited to using only two or so, which (as much as I enjoy matte shots) I think was a wise decision, as none of those last ones needed a matte painting overkill.

In my opinion, the finest matte shots in a Hitchcock film are in "The Paradine Case," which I enjoyed.

Image
(yes, everything here is painted except for Peck, the doorway, and some of the floor in front of him...pretty cool, I think)
I think the lead casting is just as diabolical as the Addinsall score.
I may be completely overestimating this, but I believe that any flaw "Torn Curtain" has would be rendered totally minor had Herrmann's score been left in...listening to it, it seriously sounds like the glue that would've held this film together and made it something (in particular he would've made the more romantic parts sound lovely and tragic, instead of Addison pulling out "Leave it to Beaver"...and, of course, Herrmann also scored the murder scene, which is one of his most harrowing cues, utilizing, I believe, twelve loud flutes the moment the man is stabbed).

User avatar
tryavna
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:38 pm
Location: North Carolina

#24 Post by tryavna » Wed May 24, 2006 10:40 am

tavernier wrote:Can someone explain to me what is so special about The Dead? I found it to be Huston's biggest disappointment and a complete comedown after Prizzi.
Since noone has answered your question yet, Tavernier, I'll take a quick stab at it, though I may not be the best person to do so, since I definitely prefer the starker Under the Volcano. What I do admire about Huston's work on The Dead is what I admire about his adaptations of preexisting literature in general. He just has such a great sense of mise-en-scene. The world he creates in this film is very narrow (because it's the world of a relatively short novella), but it's also very rich, lived-in, and clear. You never lose track of who the characters are, what their social/class background is, what their relationships to one another are, etc. In fact, for me, The Dead works as a great adaptation because, while remaining faithful to the source, it enhances my understanding of the source -- in that it helps recreate the setting, the bourgeois turn-of-the-century Xmas dinner party, so palpably.

I also greatly admire Huston's taste and restraint in this film. It's not overly serious or operating in that I-am-now-adapting-a great-work-of-literature mode (to borrow from Schreck). It's fairly straigthforward; indeed, it's more of an actor's movie than anything else. And here again, Huston exercises great taste because, apart from daughter Anjelica, the entire cast is Irish (and generally drawn from some of the finest Irish theatrical institutions), even though none of them are big names. For a man who had directed some of the biggest, this choice must have required restraint.

User avatar
tryavna
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:38 pm
Location: North Carolina

#25 Post by tryavna » Wed May 24, 2006 11:10 am

zedz wrote:
davidhare wrote:I still think an interesting direction for this thread is the REASONS for an artist's decline.
Sure, but I don't think we'll ever get there if people don't accept the fact of the decline in the first place, or recognise it as the norm.

What the hell, here goes. . .

Some reasons that spring to mind are:
- loss of key collaborators
- complacency / staleness
- failing health
- loss of power / authority
I find this topic very interesting but also very vague. I've often wondered if there's even a biological/chemical/neurological explanation for how the brain functions differently after a certain age in terms of creative capacities. Because this problem of "artistic decline" is one that many creative types outside of film complain about frequently: poets, painters, authors, actors, etc. Just as a point of comparison, filmmakers have it relatively well-off in comparison to poets, whose career highs seem to be so short before their eventual decline. (It's a bit of a cliche, but apart from Yeats, how many poets have retained their powers into old age, let alone actually improved?) And to broaden it out a bit, a number of studies have demonstrated that, after a certain point, most adult brains have increased difficulties grasping new abstract concepts.

So I don't mean to offer this as an excuse, but it would seem that a decline in faculties is normal, at least to some extent, because of the way our brains develop and work.

Of course, this offers absolutely no explanation for those artists, including filmmakers, who do improve with age. So I don't know.... But like David, I find this topic intriguing.

Post Reply