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.