A Word About Directors

Probably the most important thing to evaluate when evaluating films in any serious way is the directing. I have often overstated the importance of actors, mainly because I love actors. I love what they do. I am in love with their craft. However, it's ironic because the true author of a film, the person whose voice most powerfully influences it, is usually the director (unless the script was written by Charlie Kaufman).

A really great movie will almost always have a great director. It's very difficult to have a great movie with poor direction (though I'm sure I'll come up with at least one example). The director is, as I say, the voice, the personality, the perspective that shapes the entire thing.

A good director will give you a recognizable feeling. His or her point of view will be visible, it will be felt, it will be in the details and in the wide view. But it will not be heavy-handed.

The director is more like the author than the actual screenwriter. This is usually because the director takes the script and changes everything. Or, because the script is used strictly for dialogue. Occasionally, you have someone who is both writer/director and does it well. Again, more often than not, it's better if the director is an authorial voice who picks up the script from someone else and works that script to pull the juice out of it. To add the details, the vibe, the colors and angles that bring it to life.

Examples: A heavy-handed director is Quentin Tarantino. He's as heavy-handed a presence in his films as Norman Mailer was in his books. There is simply NO WAY to miss the fact that you're watching a Tarantino film. His fingerprints are all over it. It's a bit much, unless you happen to love Tarantino (as many do). But none of my favorite movies are by Tarantino. I like his stuff, don't get me wrong. But how much of him can you take? When you're watching John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, you don't even feel like you're watching Travolta -- an actor who's more or less always the same everywhere he appears! -- that's how serious Tarantino is. You're sitting there going, who is this actor? He kind of looks like Travolta, but the words coming out of his mouth sound a lot more like ... oh yeah, Mr. Brown.

Another heavy-handed director is Joel Coen, (or more accurately I should say Joel and Ethan Coen). Could Burn After Reading be anybody else's movie? Go and watch Raising Arizona, followed by The Big Lebowski, and then tell me what the heck they were doing making Burn After Reading, when we had seen all their tricks already -- at their best! -- in those two films.

On the other hand, you've got Ang Lee, who was most astonishingly responsible for both Sense and Sensibility and The Ice Storm. I always forget that he was responsible for The Ice Storm, even though it is -- yes! -- one of my favorite movies. His directorial touch is very gentle, and his point of view is certainly present consistently (it's that feeling you  have while watching his films that you could cry, but you will not cry, because probably you'll miss something if you start to cry, and you don't want to push pause just for the sake of crying, when after all you are leaning in breathlessly waiting for the next scene that will probably make you want to cry even harder, so you may as well wait for that one). But it's not heavy-handed (if it were, that would be scary!).

With a good director, you know you have a reason for wanting to enter his or her world. You are compelled to re-enter his world over and over again. There is a reason to do so. In other words you see the point of view but you don't feel like you are being hit over the head with it.