Empire top 20 directors

Running Bing

Anyone see the top 20 directors in this months empire. the top 10 breaks down like this:

10 Woody Allen
9 Orson welles
8 quentin tarantino
7 Peter Jackson
6 Akira Kurosawa
5 Ridley scott
4 Stanley Kubrick
3 martin scorcesse
2 Hitchcock
1 Spielberg


Anyone any thoughts on this. I mean spielberg is a great director and the most successful of all time but Kubrick,scorcesse, and hitchcock were genius. I mean Kubrick made one of the greatest war films ever (paths to glory) one of the greatest black comedies ever(strangelove) one of the greatest heist movies ever(the killing) and one of the greatest sci-fi,period drama, horror and book adaptions ever in 2001,barry lyndon,the shinning, and a clockwork orange respectively. What other director could achieve this? Scorcesse made taxi driver, mean streets, goodfellas and raging bull ffs. They would piss all over any spielberg film with the possible exception of schindlers list.

I was also dissapointed by ridley scott and especially peter jackson(He made three great films and bad taste but cppola made the godfather trilogy and apocalypse now and he was only 15th). Anyway sorry about the rant any thoughts?

Chad ghostal

i like your rant, i agree with all of it.. (especially kubrick).

but i figure it's empire..
they were always going to make an comtemporary english speaking orientated directors list..

Karl Hungus

That list is an absolute joke. That kind of garbage is the reason why I don't bother with Empire anymore. I'm sure if you grabbed random yobs of the street they'd do a better job than that rag.

Pugsley

Takeshi Kitano? (sp?) :rolleyes:

BlitzKrieg

well at least they didnt put George lucas in the top 10, then i'd be pissed.

(as Directors: Ridley Scott, Kurosawa and Kubrick should be above spielberg, hitchcock is in the right place and Scorsese is great at character development so he's fine where he is.)

sleepwalker

absolute joke ?

the complete lack of foreign directors bar one is fairly disgraceful but about half of it is right. tarantino, jackson, scott(maybe), cameron, lean and eastwood should be out on their ear. anyway good to see peckinpah and ford in there

its a public vote though so you cant really blame empire for the taste of their readers

the full list


20, SAM PEKINPAH
19, BILLY WILDER
18, JOHN FORD
17, SERGIO LEONE
16, OLIVER STONE
15, FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA
14, JAMES CAMERON
13, THE COEN BROTHERS
12, SIR DAVID LEAN
11, CLINT EASTWOOD
10, WOODY ALLEN
9, ORSON WELLES
8, QUENTIN TARANTINO
7, PETER JACKSON
6, AKIRA KUROSAWA
5, SIR RIDLEY SCOTT
4, STANLEY KUBRICK
3, MARTIN SCORSESE
2, ALFRED HITCHCOCK
1, STEVEN SPIELBERG

Karl Hungus

sleepwalker wrote:

its a public vote though so you cant really blame empire for the taste of their readers

In that case I retract my "Random Yobs" comment... It hit a little too close to the mark.

Running Bing

sleepwalker wrote:

absolute joke ?

the complete lack of foreign directors bar one is fairly disgraceful but about half of it is right. tarantino, jackson, scott(maybe), cameron, lean and eastwood should be out on their ear. anyway good to see peckinpah and ford in there

I think lean and tarantino should be in there but I fully agree about the foreign directors. Two directors who I would of liked in there would be fritz lang and Ingmar Bergman. I was also disapointed at woody allen being 10th and Charlie Chaplin being 35th. How do you figure that out (although I do know some rate woody allen quite highly)

mike65

The public are a mob would you let a mob chose a film to watch? Looks like a box-office/oscar nominee list bar Korosawa.

Greatest really should be judged by who wrote the rules of the game, pushed the technical boundaries of the medium...guys like Eistenstein, Hitchcock, D. W. Griffith, Kubrick, Michael Powell.

cameron, lean and eastwood should be out on their ear. anyway good to see peckinpah and ford in there

eh? Hard to say Lean out and Ford in for me.

Mike.

sleepwalker

im a big fan of westerns so im biased when it comes to Ford, im harsh with Lean though because i can understand whys he there but ive just never got any enjoyment from watching stuff like zhivago and lawrence of arabia

Cactus Col

What's wrong with speilberg coming number 1? He is a great director. Or is it that he's commercial?

nesf

Cactus Col wrote:

What's wrong with speilberg coming number 1? He is a great director. Or is it that he's commercial?

From a commercial sucess point of view. He's no. 1.

From an artistic ability point of view. He isn't.

Depends on your perspective.

ObeyGiant

I didn't have much of a problem with that list. Peter Jackson placing so high certainly took me by surprise, but the rest of it seemed rather fair. As a director for the masses, Spielberg is certainly the greatest.

projectmayhem

wtf is peter jackson doing there? what's the chances some lotr fansite had a "CLICK TO VOTE" link

Playboy

List was a joke ..

anyone else think it was a little ironic that Sergio Leone was one place above John Ford

I would have to get rid of Oliver Stone, James Cameron, Clint Eastwood, Peter Jackson, Ridley Scott and Quentin Tarantino out of that list.

Where the hell are Jean Renoir, Francois Truffaut, Jean Luc Godard, Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Roman Polanski, Luis Bunuel, Andrei Tarkovsky, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Fritz Lang, Jean Cocteau, Spike Lee, Sydney Lumet, John Huston, Charlie Chaplin, Krzysztof Kieslowski etc. etc. etc. etc.

Kazaanova

They should rename the list "Top 20 Most Popular Directors".

sleepwalker

the list goes to 40

21. Howard Hawks
22. Robert Zemckis
23. Michael Mann
24. David Lynch
25. Spike Lee
26. Francois Truffaut
27. Brian De Palma
28. Tony Scott
29. Fritz Lang
30. Tim Burton
31. george Lucas
32. Anthony Minghella
33. Ron Howard
34. Sam Raimi
35. Charlie Chaplin
36. Ingman bergman
37. M.Night Shyamalan
38. Peter Weir
39. Terry Gilliam
40. Robert Altman

Peteee

Whats wrong with spielberg being top:

The Sugarland Express (1974)
Jaws (1975)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
1941 (1979)

The 1980s
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Poltergeist (1982)
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
The Color Purple (1985)
Empire of the Sun (1987)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Always (1989)

The 1990s
Hook (1991)
Jurassic Park (1993)
Schindler's List (1993)
The Lost World (1997)
Amistad (1997)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
American Journey (1999)

The 2000s
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Minority Report (2002)
Catch Me If You Can (2002)
The Terminal (2004)
War of the Worlds (2005)

The facts speak for themselves, the mans a genius!

That is all, he may not be everyones _favourite_ director, but I dare anyone to put him outside your top 10, you wont find many who do.

He pushes the boundaries of film (Jurrasic park, saving private ryan)

And i'll stop rambling because there's no need to defend the man

Otacon

Peteee wrote:

The facts speak for themselves, the mans a genius!

I agree. He is probably the most popular director in the world but why is that? Simple. Everyone loves his films: Jaws is a perfect piece of cinema, the Indiana Jones series is a brilliant blockbuster movie and Saving Private Ryan is the best war movie ever made.

He is the greatest film director ever.

PWEI

Does anybody think that David Lynch deserved to be in the top twenty?

garred

I don't know I must be confused. I've never watched a movie and thought that was great direction. Sure you could say good acting, storyline, effects, etc but not direction. Is it that important, I mean if the plot is crap, the actors crap is a good director going to make a difference?

Peteee

garred wrote:

Is it that important, I mean if the plot is crap, the actors crap is a good director going to make a difference?

A good director can make a mediocre script into a good film. A bad director will just make a bad film. Whereas a good script is pretty hard to mess up.

To get an idea of what a director does (People always come around to my point of view when i tell them to do this) is to read a script of a film you've never seen, but that you know who the actors are in it, nothing else.

Think of how you would shoot the first scene? Would it be fast or slow? Colours, camera angles etc etc

Think of all the things that make up a film.

Now that you've gone through the first scene, and visualised it in your head (The way the actors move and act, the camera placement and movement, any action etc)

Then watch the first scene of the film?

Different from what you had in your head wasnt it. Even though your film has the same script and actors, i'd say the film you had in your mind is extremely different to the one you see on screen.

Thats what a director does.

He dosent seem so unimportant now does he

garred

Thanks and well explained Petee but still goes back to my point, I've never looked at a film and thought "that was great direction" "that was poor direction". I mean they are not going to give scripts and budgets to unexperienced/poor directors, so the only things that can let a film down or bring a film to greatness is script, plot, acting etc..
Maybe its just me.

Peteee

garred wrote:

Thanks and well explained Petee but still goes back to my point, I've never looked at a film and thought "that was great direction" "that was poor direction". I mean they are not going to give scripts and budgets to unexperienced/poor directors, so the only things that can let a film down or bring a film to greatness is script, plot, acting etc..
Maybe its just me.

WEll I've seen many a film that I felt was poorly directed (Although I am biased in that i've made a short film (albeit a home made jobbie.....for the last time its not porn! ), so I have an inkling into what goes into it.

Certainly a good script is as important as a good director.

They do give massive budgets to bad directors. Director of Aliens Vs Predator for one. I could also mention the director of a famous movie trilogy.....and i'm not talking about peter jackson. However I wont mention him!

garred

Yeah take your point, but the AvP was just bad acting and bad script (funnily enough I enjoyed it).

Peteee wrote:

WEll I've seen many a film that I felt was poorly directed (Although I am biased in that i've made a short film (albeit a home made jobbie.....for the last time its not porn! )

Sounds to me like porn.

Getting back to the list would agree with Speilberg but would have Tarrantino ahead of Jackson.

ixoy

garred wrote:

Yeah take your point, but the AvP was just bad acting and bad script (funnily enough I enjoyed it).

No, it was bad directing as well. For example: remember the scene where the predator and the girl run from the flames? It's done in slow motion and looks cheesy. That exact scene wouldn't have been written in the script where it would merely have been:
[Predator and woman run from flames]

It was bad directing that translated it into a cheesy slow-mo. It was bad directing that decided not to exercise control over the script and focus on characters, or whatever.

On the other hand, let's take 'Requiem for a Dream'. The script is fairly unremarkable. It's the director's idea to use his own 'hip hop' montage technique, and other tools such as the body-mounted cam that enable us to get into the visceral feeling of the movie. The editing there was cruical and that's often a task that the director has a crucial input in.

Directors often make or break a movie although script writers remain woefully underappreciated.

mewso

We can rename it to the most popular directors but a list containing some of the suggested directors could also be called "the most pleasing to artsy fartsy w@nk fest fans" list.
You get alot of so called great directors who to my mind self indulge too much and get called a genius. I am a fan of Lynch but Eraserhead is an old nutshell with me. Long silences, black and white, total self indulgence.
Spielberg, whether he should be number 1 or not, is just incredible at consistently producing really entertaining films. He aims to enterain not to be deep. fine with me.
I have a soft spot for early Carpenter and his many great ideas and touches in so many films. Dream from the future in Prince of darkness, hot needle and blood in the Thing and so on. Unfortunately his later films consign him to the barrel.

sarahinnavan

Of course Lynch deserved to be in the Top 20. Lost Highway, Blue Velvet. Admittedly, he makes very strange and disturbing films, but who wants to see a bloody Adam Sandler film every time you go to the cinema?

AARRRGH

Any top directors list with Quentin Tarantino on it is bollox. He made a small amount of "cool" movies, that is all.

At least they had the decency to include Akira Kurosawa.

BlitzKrieg

Think of how you would shoot the first scene? Would it be fast or slow? Colours, camera angles etc etc

Think of all the things that make up a film.

wouldnt a large part of that be the director of photography's job aswell?

ixoy

BlitzKrieg wrote:

wouldnt a large part of that be the director of photography's job aswell?

Uh huh but doesn't the director also have to sign off on it? Again though some directors like to work behind the cameras, others are more geared towards actors (Clint's an example of this AFAIK), whereas others might look nifty but it's because they have long term collaborations with particular photograph directors. It really depends on how "hands on" these directors are but I imagine most of them on the list involve themselves in the process.

Lynch is an ommission methinks since, listening to the making of 'Blue Velvet' and the like, he gets very involved in the entire film making process and produces unique visions to the extent he becomes an adjective for movies - "Lynchian".

Spielberg as #1? Not for me. I'd have put Kubrick there for many of the reasons listed previously. Big fan of his. Still can't deny that Spielberg knows how to appeal to the masses, even if some of his work - Saving Private Ryan for example - is over-rated apart from a couple of intense scenes. He delivers what's needed genreally so I won't argue too much about it. If I had seen Lucas' name there though...

maquiladora

I don't agree with Scorcesse and Scott being there, but it's not *that* bad a list. I've seen worse.
I mean, unless it's not going to be a carbon copy of your own image of the top ten then its going to be "rubbish". It's all just opinion, Empire's is no more important your yours or mine.

Playboy

musician wrote:

We can rename it to the most popular directors but a list containing some of the suggested directors could also be called "the most pleasing to artsy fartsy w@nk fest fans" list.

lol what an idiotic thing to say esp on a film board. Do you have any idea how much those artsy fartsy films and directors have influenced the average movie?

Peteee

BlitzKrieg wrote:

wouldnt a large part of that be the director of photography's job aswell?

Yeah, lots of directors let the DOP take care of this. Someone mentioned clint eastwood as a good example.

Part of the reasons I love spielberg (and to a certain extent Ridley and Tony Scott and peter jackson.....and (dont kill me) Michael Bay!) Is because of the way they set up their shots.

Makes or breaks action scenes especally

Otacon

I agree with Peteee on the last point he makes about action scenes. One director who I believe is one of the best action directors in the world is James Cameron.

Now, I'm not going to start reeling off why he is such a good director, as I think the article in the Empire 20 Greatest... takes care of that. If you haven't read the articles, do. All I'll say is I know people don't agree with me, so I'll sit and wait for the onslaught...

AthAnRi

nesf wrote:

From a commercial sucess point of view. He's no. 1.

From an artistic ability point of view. He isn't.

Depends on your perspective.

Ther is no such thing as a commercial successful 'point of view'. No matter what your perspective is spielberg is will still be number one comercially. It is just a fact.

As for artistic then this just comes down to a matter of opinion. As with all art I guess. I mean if your gonna say that Oliver Stone and Stanley Kubrick are artistically excellent directors then you gotta admit that Spielberg does a pretty good job too. Especially if you watched band of brothers and saving private ryan. (The latter not being my favourite storyline of all time but no one can argue about the part the director played)

To say that you can only have one or the other is a little too black and white. Surely you can create a film that is commercially succesful but can also be considered a work of art.

Personally Spielberg wouldn't be my favourite director but I certainly cannot argue with the fact that he is number one. I would however have to question the inclusion of Peter Jackson and Ridley Scott in the top 10

AthAnRi

dublindude wrote:

Any top directors list with Quentin Tarantino on it is bollox. He made a small amount of "cool" movies, that is all.

At least they had the decency to include Akira Kurosawa.

If you had to pick every directors best film and then judge their directing ability on that, then not only would Tarantino be in the top ten he would probably be in the top 3 For Pulp Fiction alone.

Running Bing

maquiladora wrote:

I don't agree with Scorcesse and Scott being there

How could you possibly not agree with Scorcesse being there. Even if you dont like his films how could anyone not agree scorcesse is one of the greatest directors ever? (Im actually looking for a response not just expressing my astonishment)

mewso

Playboy wrote:

lol what an idiotic thing to say esp on a film board. Do you have any idea how much those artsy fartsy films and directors have influenced the average movie?

Of course I have no idea. I'm clueless. Thanks for being polite with your criticism. No need to worry I tend to bow out of a discussion when arrogant posters decide to belittle others. Enjoy.

trajan

This was a straw poll of drooling westernised idiots too dumb to read books so they resort to dumb magazines like Empire. The fact that directors like Tarkovsky, Pasolini, Kiarostami etc make no appearance is for the same reason that none of the great footballers would be listed if you went around a school playground and asked all the kids their favourite player.

In any case Spielberg is and has always been an excellent technician but has only made one truly good film and that's jaws.

ObeyGiant

trajan wrote:

This was a straw poll of drooling westernised idiots too dumb to read books so they resort to dumb magazines like Empire.

Whuh?
This statement certainly came out of left field. "These people are too dumb to read Shakespeare so they read Empire Magazine instead"? I think I speak for everyone when I say "WTF?!"

trajan wrote:

In any case Spielberg is and has always been an excellent technician but has only made one truly good film and that's jaws.

Close Encounters is incredible. Especially the extended Director's edition.

mycroft

ObeyGiant wrote:

Whuh?
This statement certainly came out of left field. "These people are too dumb to read Shakespeare so they read Empire Magazine instead"? I think I speak for everyone when I say "WTF?!"

I gave up on Empire when a few years ago, they themselves picked their top 50 directors, and it a idiotic piece of PC nonsense they must have realised that there were no women in and quickly revised the list.

the five women included in Empire's 50 greatest directors were;

Jane Campion (a case can be made, granted)

Leni Riefenstahl (contraversal but we'll allow it)

And this is where we wandered in the deep end of insanity;

Katherine Biglow (Strange days, Near Dark and Point break)

Barbara Streisland (I'm not kidding)

And

Jodie Foster (seriously)



So what have we learnt from all this, the "experts" at empire are even more clueless than the yokels who write into these things.

echomadman

I'm puzzled by the Ridley Scott hate in this thread, he's a film making genius in my opinion, he'd make my top 5 any day. If you disagree explain why.

lot of elitist knee-jerk reactions going on here, and coming from an elitist jerk like me thats saying something.

edit: not to say that list would match mine, but i'd never expect a popular opinion poll to do that anyway, i'm just surprised how worked up everyone got about it.

projectmayhem

echomadman wrote:

I'm puzzled by the Ridley Scott hate in this thread, he's a film making genius in my opinion, he'd make my top 5 any day. If you disagree explain why.

lot of elitist knee-jerk reactions going on here, and coming from an elitist jerk like me thats saying something.

edit: not to say that list would match mine, but i'd never expect a popular opinion poll to do that anyway, i'm just surprised how worked up everyone got about it.

i'm with you on that. scott is one of my all-time favourites. his catalogue of work speaks for itself

Karl Hungus

echomadman wrote:

I'm puzzled by the Ridley Scott hate in this thread, he's a film making genius in my opinion, he'd make my top 5 any day. If you disagree explain why.

Over the years his output has been nothing short of mediocre. While I enjoyed Gladiator as a nice action romp, other films like Hannibal, GI Jane, White Squall, Black Rain, Matchstick Men and Black Hawk Down have all bored me to tears. I've not even bothered giving Kingdom Of Heaven the benifit of doubt. Legend was probably the last film of his I really enjoyed, and that was 20 years ago.

He's done some great work, like Alien, Blade Runner and The Duelists, but on the whole he's an entirely average director.

I'm sure somebody is going to take exception to my comments.

ObeyGiant

echomadman wrote:

I'm puzzled by the Ridley Scott hate in this thread, he's a film making genius in my opinion, he'd make my top 5 any day. If you disagree explain why.

At a guess, I'd say that if this thread had come up five years ago, people wouldn't be arguing against Ridley Scott's appearance on the list. But everything post-Gladiator has been so disgustingly... commercial, I think he's fallen out of favour with a certain group of people.

mycroft

ObeyGiant wrote:

At a guess, I'd say that if this thread had come up five years ago, people wouldn't be arguing against Ridley Scott's appearance on the list. But everything post-Gladiator has been so disgustingly... commercial, I think he's fallen out of favour with a certain group of people.

That and gladitor being a steaming pile of tiger poo, GI Jane was top gun with titties. He's a commerical director constantly trying to sell the story. Like Coppola he's a director well past his prime.

Playboy

musician wrote:

Of course I have no idea. I'm clueless. Thanks for being polite with your criticism. No need to worry I tend to bow out of a discussion when arrogant posters decide to belittle others. Enjoy.

lol me arrogant? .. refer to your previous post when you trashed other peoples opinion of what a great director is b4 you call someone else arrogant.

musician wrote:

We can rename it to the most popular directors but a list containing some of the suggested directors could also be called "the most pleasing to artsy fartsy w@nk fest fans" list.

mewso

Refer to your lack of humour. Anyway it was an idiotic post.

ObeyGiant

mycroft wrote:

Like Coppola he's a director well past his prime.

He's never been one of my favourite directors (give me Tony over Ridley, any day), but I thought Black Hawk Down was an amazing movie. It's just a shame it got written off as a showcase movie for people's ridiculously expensive home cinema setups.

mycroft

ObeyGiant wrote:

He's never been one of my favourite directors (give me Tony over Ridley, any day), but I thought Black Hawk Down was an amazing movie. It's just a shame it got written off as a showcase movie for people's ridiculously expensive home cinema setups.

I thought Pedro Scalia did an amazing cutting job, but post 9/11 patriotism, and the fact that thousands and thousands of anonymous "darkies" just get mowed down that it echo'd pieces of jingoistic film making like Zulu, and just wasn't appropiate, it also wasn't a film in my book just a 90odd minute action scene.