Directors who fell from grace

johnny_ultimate · 29-01-2012 6:49pm #1

Was reading a scathing review of the abysmal-looking The Sitter the other day, and was disappointed to see David Gordon Green credited as director. Here's a man who made the frankly astonishing George Washington as his debut feature - one of the most underviewed and powerful American independent dramas of the 2000s - and went onto make a number of subtle, effective character dramas. But then he joined his long-term friend Danny McBride (who co-starred in the excellent All the Real Girls before he hit the big time) on the journey to Hollywood, and has now been responsible for three of the basest, most immature mainstream comedies of recent years (Pineapple Express, Your Highness and now The Sitter). It's astounding, the shift in tone and approach. One cannot begrudge a director a paycheck if the offer is right and it can help fund their more personal works. But almost five years later, and there's no sign of him going back to his once characteristic ways.

Francis Ford Coppola is often cited as another example of this phenomenon. From defining films of a generation, to director-for-hire. A poor personal project or two can be forgiven. Jack and one Godfather sequel too-many cannot.

And while I'm not willing to write him off yet (his proposed adaptation of Ubik feels me with quiet confidence) Michel Gondry has gone from crafting elaborate, utterly unique flights-of-fancy to increasingly mediocre Hollywood productions. There's still hope yet (and I've yet to see his documentary a Thorn in the Heart), but goodwill from the Eternal Sunshine / Block Party (a fun if harmless documentary) / Science of Sleep hattrick is growing hazier by the film.

Any other directors whose career and artistic decisions have left you downtrodden and bamboozled?

Nolanger · 29-01-2012 6:52pm

Bill Forsyth - That sinking feeling, Gregory's girl, Local hero, Comfort and joy. That was up to 1984 and after that he went to America and now who he?

rednik · 29-01-2012 7:11pm

Michael Cimino : After writing the screenplay for Magnum force and then directing Thunderbolt & Lightfoot, The Deerhunter he made Heaven's Gate. Huge cast and enormous budget, rumours emerged during production of Cimino's erratic behaviour and the budget rising. The end product was met mainly by terrible reviews although I went to see it in the cinema it wasn't all that bad. The extended edition is actually a decent movie.

A few years later he made Year of the dragon with Mickey Rourke which again drew huge controversy from the Chinese community, in the end it was a very good movie. Desperate hours and The Sicilain are just tripe. Downhill all the way for someone who had shown great promise.

29-01-2012 7:20pm

I get the impression that David Gordon Green is much happier making low brow comedy than going back to the type of film that brought him to the worlds attention. It's a shame as his first three films are amongst the past decades finest films. Thought provoking, intelligent character studies, a complete world away from the low brow, juvenile and forgettable crap that has become his bread and butter.

For me Michael Cimino is the perfect example of a director who fell from grace in spectacular style. He made quite a splash with the underrated Thunderbolt and Lightfoot followed that with the critically acclaimed The Deer Hunter only to watch as his career all but died with the release of his third film Heaven's Gate. After the astounding failure of Heaven's Gate he made a few low key but forgettable thrillers and has all been but forgotten about. It's a cautionary tale for any director about how one flop can truly destroy one of the most promising careers of the past half decade.

mike65 · 29-01-2012 7:26pm

Anyone remember John Schlesinger, he can't have a come back as he died in 2003 but for the previous 20 years he was in the doldrums. From 1962 he was going from strength to strength

A Kind of Loving (1962)
Billy Liar (1963)
Darling (1965)
Far From the Madding Crowd (1967)
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971)
The Day of the Locust (1975)
Marathon Man (1976)
Yanks (1979)

His decline can be traced to one truly misbegotten and rather expensive flop called Honky Tonk Freeway (1981). 20 million bucks of loose broad bad comedy with music. It didn't stop him completely (The Falcon and the Snowman was pretty good and Pacific Heights a decent creepy thriller) but his career trajectory clearly plateaued and the jobs on the big screen became fewer and he turned increaingly to TV.

Quite what tempted him into directing Freeway can only be guessed at as it sticks out like a sore thumb in his CV. Its badness can be judged from this clip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfut2qf2it0

Sad Professor · 29-01-2012 7:28pm

Whatever happened to Lawrence Kasdan? He made a bunch of excellent little films: Body Heat, The Big Chill, The Accidental Tourist, The Grand Canyon, Mumford. Then he made Dreamcatcher and just disappeared. His next film is about a woman looking for her dog. Kasdan was one of the most interesting writer-directors of the ‘80s and early ‘90s. Now it looks like he just doesn’t care about making films anymore.

Another is Oliver Stone, one of the most powerful voices in American cinema, who in the 10 year period from 1985 to 1995 made 10 films, many of which I'd consider amongst the best films of their respective years. Then he made U-Turn, which, while not a bad film by any means, marked the beginning of a career downslide. His recent films suggest a man who is a shadow of his former self. A lot of this is undoubtedly due to the media assassination of his character following a string of controversial films which made it difficult for him to get financing for his projects. He also lost a vital collaborator in Robert Richardson. However, his next film, Savages, looks really good and will hopefully be a return to form.

SVG · 29-01-2012 7:36pm

Deleted User wrote: »

I get the impression that David Gordon Green is much happier making low brow comedy than going back to the type of film that brought him to the worlds attention.

I get this impression too. I'd imagine he had a blast making Pineapple Express and Your Highness but I'd love to see him make an occasional Undertow.

Back to the main question, how about Rob Reiner? I recently had the misfortune of seeing Rumor Has It:(. Hard to believe it's from the man who directed Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally etc. etc. I think it all started to go south with North.

mike65 · 29-01-2012 7:44pm

With many of these tales age is an important factor. Its worth looking at the output of even the most successful/awards-strewn directors and see how late on they lose the plot or seem to coast downhill to their death (Hitchcock springs to mind here, his films after The Birds are second rate when compared to what came before).

Sad Professor · 29-01-2012 8:00pm

I also think a lot of it has to do with the consequences of financial failure. After a few box office bombs, directors lose their clout and aren't allowed the same freedom that they previously enjoyed. Coppola talks about this on The Godfather III commentary track. On the first Godfather he was fighting with the studio day and night to make the film he wanted to make. The success of that film gave him a blank cheque for The Godfather Part II. But by the time Godfather III came along he was back to square one, except now he had to deal with a bunch of slimeballs in suits.

WatchWolf · 29-01-2012 8:15pm

Francis Ford Coppola went from making The Godfather I & II and Apocalypse Now, and ended up making stuff like this... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116669/

29-01-2012 8:32pm

Deleted User wrote: »

I get the impression that David Gordon Green is much happier making low brow comedy than going back to the type of film that brought him to the worlds attention. It's a shame as his first three films are amongst the past decades finest films. Thought provoking, intelligent character studies, a complete world away from the low brow, juvenile and forgettable crap that has become his bread and butter.

This is the most important reason to do anything. And he's good at it. I loved Pineapple Express and Your Highness was a great way to take me back to my childhood using real animatronics. Yeah, they're basically stoner/fart jokes, but so what? I enjoy turning my brain off. Do you realise how boring and bland the world would be if every film was a cinematic masterpiece?

This is why we should have a separate movie and film forum. Film buffs hate the stuff I like and call it, "low brow, juvenile and forgettable crap" and "the basest, most immature mainstream comedies". If we say the same about a Von Trier film we're called clueless!

You stick to films, I'll stick to movies.

And so I'm not going off on a complete tangent, I'd put Ivan Reitman in the list. The guy gives us Ghostbusters, Meatballs, Stripes and Twins and then gives us My Super Ex-girlfriend and No-Strings Attached.

Bleurgh.

SVG · 29-01-2012 8:37pm

Deleted User wrote: »

This is why we should have a separate movie and film forum. Film buffs hate the stuff I like and call it, "low brow, juvenile and forgettable crap" and "the basest, most immature mainstream comedies". If we say the same about a Von Trier film we're called clueless!

Nooooooooooo!

Please don't do this. What's the point of a forum where everyone agrees?

Nolanger · 29-01-2012 8:37pm

Tony Richardson - made several outstanding British films from the late 1950s and early 1960s resulting in an Oscar for Tom Jones. Then for the next 30 years nothing of worth. Then he died of AIDS.

mike65 · 29-01-2012 8:56pm

I suppose Ken Russell has to get a mention, while never mainstream he was a big success within his niche and got sucked into trying his hand at Hollywood with Altered States which flopped and was then followed by Crimes of Passion a film that posed problems for New World Pictures as it needed much editing to get an R rating. It flopped as well and that was that pretty much it apart from Whore (1991). Ken heads home to make increasingly camp/outré flicks before the serious offers finally run out. He did keep busy but with tv commissions that were hardly seen bar 1995 Treasure Island for Channel 4 and a couple of South Bank Show films.

29-01-2012 9:19pm

Deleted User wrote: »

This is the most important reason to do anything. And he's good at it. I loved Pineapple Express and Your Highness was a great way to take me back to my childhood using real animatronics. Yeah, they're basically stoner/fart jokes, but so what? I enjoy turning my brain off. Do you realise how boring and bland the world would be if every film was a cinematic masterpiece?

This is why we should have a separate movie and film forum. Film buffs hate the stuff I like and call it, "low brow, juvenile and forgettable crap" and "the basest, most immature mainstream comedies". If we say the same about a Von Trier film we're called clueless!

You stick to films, I'll stick to movies.

And so I'm not going off on a complete tangent, I'd put Ivan Reitman in the list. The guy gives us Ghostbusters, Meatballs, Stripes and Twins and then gives us My Super Ex-girlfriend and No-Strings Attached.

Bleurgh.

May want to get down off of your high horse. Just because someone labels a film low brow, juvenile or or forgettable crap does not mean that they are some stuck up film snob. I enjoy turn off your brain cinema as much as the next person but that does not mean that I'm not going to judge a film such as Your Highness which was one of the poorest films of the past decade.

The animatronics were good but the story was crap, the acting was poor and the comedy was the kind that involved our star winking at the audience each time a joke was made in case we forgot to laugh. Pineapple Express was good fun but it's instantly forgettable and a year after last watching it I'm struggling to remember anything bar the foot stuck in the windscreen scene. As for the Sitter, well the trailers have been dreadful and the reviews are scathing. Add in the fact that it's just over 70 minutes long and I really can't see myself every bothering to watch it.

If you take a look over my past posts you'll find that I've repeatedly defended films that others have written off and on numerous occasions have said that if everyone liked the same films then the world would be a very boring place.

29-01-2012 9:24pm

Was thinking about this and the list of directors who have watched their career's go down the tubes is endless. Off the top of my head these are just a few of the directors who have been critically acclaimed but seemed to drop off the face of the earth/end up making low budget slasher film sequels.

Barry Levinson
Peter Bogdanovich
John Badham
Arthur Penn
Bob Rafelson
Peter Yates
Bill Forsyth
John G Avildsen
Monte Hellman
Richard Lester

johnny_ultimate · 29-01-2012 9:26pm

Deleted User wrote: »

This is the most important reason to do anything. And he's good at it. I loved Pineapple Express and Your Highness was a great way to take me back to my childhood using real animatronics. Yeah, they're basically stoner/fart jokes, but so what? I enjoy turning my brain off. Do you realise how boring and bland the world would be if every film was a cinematic masterpiece?

This is why we should have a separate movie and film forum. Film buffs hate the stuff I like and call it, "low brow, juvenile and forgettable crap" and "the basest, most immature mainstream comedies". If we say the same about a Von Trier film we're called clueless!

You stick to films, I'll stick to movies.

But the thing is he's not very good at it. They're characterless films that could have been directed by anyone at all without a smidgen of difference. David Gordon Green's early films put him out there as someone with a huge love of cinema, and a wonderful control of (to use a pretentious phrase) the cinematic form. Now, I'm sure he's having a blast in Hollywood, and if we measure success in financial terms he's more successful than he's ever been (and ever would be if he kept making the kind of films he was making). And I'm happy that he's succeeded in that regard. But I just find it bizarre that such a unique director has all but abandoned the films he was clearly passionate about and very good at (if we measure success in terms of critical recognition). There are many directors who balance small personal projects and Hollywood blockbusters, Steven Soderburgh being one. To me, it's a waste that someone as talented as David Gorden Green is just making films that would be just as good/bad/indifferent in the hands of any random director-for-hire. I enjoy turning my brain off (although personally Pineapple Express and all just bore me to tears

) but I'd prefer ambitious, individual cinema any day of the week.

And one more that springs to mind - Alex Proyas. He created a most unusual, haunting sci-fi film with Dark City. But since then he's all over the shop. There was the bland I, Robot, but Knowing showed him unable to match ambition (Knowing is awful, but it is different) with execution. Richard Kelly also belongs in the category - seemingly with an inability to replicate or even emulate the huge success of Donnie Darko.

MickShamrock · 29-01-2012 9:27pm

I really enjoyed Pineapple Express and Your Highness, so on that basis I will probably enjoy The Sitter too. He's also involved in Danny McBride's Eastbound and Down tv show which I highly enjoy too. I think he directs it.

Back on topic, I would put forward Richard Kelly and Troy Duffy.

29-01-2012 9:33pm

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

And one more that springs to mind - Alex Proyas. He created a most unusual, haunting sci-fi film with Dark City. But since then he's all over the shop. There was the bland I, Robot, but Knowing showed him unable to match ambition (Knowing is awful, but it is different) with execution. Richard Kelly also belongs in the category - seemingly with an inability to replicate or even emulate the huge success of Donnie Darko.

Proyas is one of those directors who the studios destroyed. The experience making Dark City and the subsequent reedits the studio insisted on turned him off of film making for years. In fact for a long time he repeatedly stated that he never wanted to direct again. He's a visually unique film maker who isn't afraid to made dark, adult cinema full of ideas but he's been repeatedly forced to make the film the studio wants.

Kelly is an odd on in that the studio made Donnie Darko the success that it is. Kelly's directors cut is a self indulgent and uninspired film that removes any hint of mystery that made the original cut so unique. I personally loved Southland Tales, it's a glorious mess but a mess it is. That he expected film fans to first read the graphic novels in order to get the full story says a lot.

krudler · 29-01-2012 9:35pm

John Carpenter surely. Halloween, The Thing, They Live,Assault On Precinct 13, Big Trouble In Little China, Escape From New York, all superb genre movies, and in Halloween a bona fide classic that spawned countless imitators. lately puts his name to crappy horror movies, although I havent seen The Ward so couldnt tell you if thats any good.

Richard Donner would be another one, he had a stellar run of blockbusters in his earlier career, The Omen, Superman 1&2, Ladyhawke, The Goonies, Lethal Weapon 1,2 and 3 then in the mid 90's made Assassins, Consipracy Theory and on the 00's Timeline and 16 Blocks,which was ok but nothing great considering his earlier track record. he is 72 now though so he's probably done with filmmaking. very entertaining to listen to on dvd commentaries, especially his Superman one with Tom Mankciewicz

Ninap · 29-01-2012 9:49pm

Polanski: Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, Frantic and then......Oliver Twist?

But surely the biggest example of unfulfilled promise is Tarantino? Two masterpieces (Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction) and then endless schlock

Nolanger · 29-01-2012 9:51pm

Hugh Hudson - Chariots of fire, Oscars, the British are coming! One of the most hyped directors in the 1980s. Then he made Revolution and it was a financial disaster. He should make a movie called Damp squib!

johnny_ultimate · 29-01-2012 9:53pm

Wouldn't put Polanski down - certainly a fair share of misjudgements, but also quite a few interesting movies. Was a big fan of The Ghost (Writer), even if I can't quite put my finger on why. And while Carnage basically just looks like a modern day rethread of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, it could be moderately interesting. And moderately interesting is better than nothing

SVG · 29-01-2012 9:57pm

Ninap wrote: »

But surely the biggest example of unfulfilled promise is Tarantino? Two masterpieces (Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction) and then endless schlock

Have you not seen Jackie Brown?

Nolanger · 29-01-2012 9:57pm

Buster Keaton - one of the best directors of the silent era (better than Chaplin) but ignored for decades in the sound era and ended up acting in stupid beach movies in the 1960s.

pixelburp · 29-01-2012 10:03pm

For me it has always been John Carpenter. I sometimes joke that during the 1980s the man was kidnapped & a bizarro clone took over his life. He pretty much wrote the book on making a horror/thriller movie in the late 70s to early 80s: The Fog, The Thing, Halloween, Assault on Precinct 13, Escape from New York, Prince of Darkness (sometimes voted the scariest film ever made); ok, while some of those films are pure popcorn schlock, Carpenter knew how to create a sense of dread, and his films were full to bursting with atmosphere. Hell, the man even made his own soundtracks, and damn tasty examples of moody, ambient electronica they were too.

Now? Well ... he's the guy who made Escape from LA. And Ghosts of Mars.

Da Shins Kelly · 29-01-2012 11:48pm

Ninap wrote: »

But surely the biggest example of unfulfilled promise is Tarantino? Two masterpieces (Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction) and then endless schlock

Inglorious Basterds?

dark crystal · 29-01-2012 11:58pm

I would say M. Night Shyamalan.

He made some genuinely good films such as The Sixth Sense, Signs and Unbreakable and then went a bit off kilter with The Village (although I liked it more than most others did)

After that we had the awful Lady In The Water, the extremely disappointing The Happening and finally, The Last Airbender which got the worst reviews of his career so far.

Let's hope After Earth sees a return to form for him.

SVG · 30-01-2012 12:14am

dark crystal wrote: »

I would say M. Night Shyamalan.

He made some genuinely good films such as The Sixth Sense, Signs and Unbreakable and then went a bit off kilter with The Village (although I liked it more than most others did)

After that we had the awful Lady In The Water, the extremely disappointing The Happening and finally, The Last Airbender which got the worst reviews of his career so far.

Let's hope After Earth sees a return to form for him.

I'm glad there's someone else who's hoping for a Shyamalan comeback. The Sixth Sense, Signs, Unbreakable and The Village are all (whatever about the rest of their faults) so beautifully directed. I've avoided his last three but the fact that his next film isn't written by him gives me some hope.

pixelburp · 30-01-2012 12:21am

I think part of the problem with Shyamalan was because he started believing the hype about himself. His followup films had unnecessary twists & the increasingly large cameos he gave himself suggested an ego gone rampant.

As for his early work, I actually think Unbreakable is his best movie, far above 6th Sense, and possibly one of the best superhero movies made in modern times. Although it also had a twist, I actually thought the payoff felt organic & quite clever.

SVG · 30-01-2012 12:31am

pixelburp wrote: »

I think part of the problem with Shyamalan was because he started believing the hype about himself. His followup films had unnecessary twists & the increasingly large cameos he gave himself suggested an ego gone rampant.

I think this is probably the case. Perhaps the bad reviews for his last few films and the lols elicited by that "from the mind of M. Night Shyamalan" in the trailer for Devil will have brought him back down to earth.

We can only hope.

Directors who fell from grace

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