See at Least 1 Movie by the They Shoot Pictures Top 100 Directors

1Orsen Welles
2Alfred Hitchock
3Federico Fellini
4John Ford
5Stanley Kubrick
6Jean Renior
7Akira Kurosawa
8Ingmar Bergman
9Francis Ford Coppola
10Jean-Luc Godard
11Charlie Chaplin
12Billy Wilder
13Luis Buñuel
14Martin Scorsese
15Howard Hawks
16Carl Dreyer
17Sergei Eisenstein
18F.W. Murnau
19Yasujiro Ozu
20Robert Bresson
21Fritz Lang
22Andrei Tarkovsky
23François Truffaut
24Kenji Mizoguchi
25David Lean
26Buster Keaton
27Michelangelo Antonioni
28Roberto Rossellini
29D.W. Griffith
30Steven Spielberg
31Max Ophüls
32Vittorio De Sica
33Luchino Visconti
34Ernst Lubitsch
35Satyajit Ray
36John Huston
37Woddy Allen
38Stanley Donen
39Jean Vigo
40Roman Polanski
41Robert Altman
42Powell & Pressburger
43Frank Capra
44Michael Curtiz
45Alain Resnais
46Sergio Leone
47Victor Fleming
48Sam Peckinpah
49Preson Sturges
50Bernardo Bertolucci
51Carol Reed
52Ridley Scott
53John Cassavetes
54Marcel Carné
55Erich von Stroheim
56George Cukor
57Rainer Werner Fassbinder
58Leo McCarey
59Vincente Minnelli
60Douglas Sirk
61Werner Herzog
62David Lynch
63Jacques Tati
64Josef von Sternberg
65Nicholas Ray
66Pier Paolo Pasolini
67Elia Kazan
68Joseph L. Mankiewicz
69Krzysztof Kieslowski
70William Wyler
71Abbas Kiarostami
72Terrance Malick
73King Vidor
74Jacques Tourneur
75Milos Forman
76Wim Wenders
77Jacques Rivette
78Chris Marker
79Eric Rohmer
80Wong Kar-Wai
81Quentin Tarantino
82David Cronenberg
83Joel & Ethan Coen
84Jean Cocteau
85Hou Hsiao-Hsien
86Clint Eastwood
87Jea-Pierre Melville
88Nicholas Roeg
89Robert Flaherty
90Alexander Dovzhenko
91Sideny Lumet
92Brian De Palma
93Jacques Demy
94Raoul Walsh
95George Lucas
96James Cameron
97Adrzej Wajda
98Otto Preminger
99Chantal Akerman
100George Stevens

Not sure where I was when I last posted, but as of today, I am at 95 out of 100 for this. The list when through a change a bit ago and a few of the directors near the bottom of the list of 100 were removed, replaced with a few others. That is fine by me, especially since one of the directors removed was one that baffled me as to why he was worthy of inclusion in the first place. :P

This has been unexpectedly challenging, partly due to some of the filmmakers having no films on DVD (boooooooooooo!). The largest challenge has been the one to me as a film-watcher. A few of the films I’ve seen by these “best” directors have struck me as entirely ordinary and sometimes even below average. Not to be deterred, when I’ve had a negative experience with a director’s film, I try another one—if I can even find a second film by the director.

If the second one disappoints as well, I read about why the director and those films are supposed to be unique, good, notable, whatever. Sometimes after reading up, I at least understand why someone may like it even though I don’t; other times I still don’t see the appeal and just have to accept that either (a) I “just don’t get it” or (b) the emperor has no clothes.

I took film classes and read film books and all that rot, even wrote a thesis paper on Hitchcock, focusing on framing, angles, lighting, visual symbolism yada yada yada, so I look for those things . . . sometimes they are there and sometimes they are not. Not that I need Hitchcockian magic to be satisfied; I don’t mind, and sometimes revel in, simple direction.

One film in particular that I watched by John Cassevetes (#53 on the list) was so sub-par – visually boring, goofy been-there-done-that plot, horrendous acting – that when the Netflix instant watching system crashed 15 minutes before the end of the movie I realized I didn’t care whatsoever how it turned out. The thought of starting the movie back up again was so unappealing that I vacuumed instead.

These are my two favorites of the films I’ve watched in the past two weeks as part of this goal:

16. Robert Bresson – A Man Escaped. I liked this film a lot. It was up my alley; I was reminded of other films I’ve seen and enjoyed that were similar in some way. I appreciated the film’s simplicity. The story, characters, costumes, sets; all was simple.

85. Jacques Demy – Umbrellas of Cherbourg. What can be said about a film in which every line of dialogue is sung (and in French!)? Even stuff like “Hi” and “How are you?” and “I’m going to the store” was sung. A film like this could have easily turned out to be a simple film made special by the cast singing all the dialogue. It could have been flash over substance. I think some late plot turns and the ending itself particularly helped the film not be the mundane love story it could settled into being. I won’t say anything more about the end (since I hate when people spoil endings for me, I refuse to spoil endings for others).

After watching the film, I was doing a bit of reading about the song, originated by “Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” “I Will Wait for You.” (Great song.) Apparently, about 90% of the 10% of Americans who even are aware of this song’s existence know it solely as “that song from Futurama in that episode with Fry’s dog.”

Well, anyway . . . I’m now at 79/100 for this list. 21 directors to go.

These are the directors I’ve seen a film by since my entry 2 weeks ago who I feel somewhat undecided about; I liked the following films but didn’t love them:

33. Jean Vigo – L’Atalante. Jean Vigo made 4 total films; 1 feature-length, 2 shorts, and a 41-minute film (like a novella of films; too long to be a short, too short to be a full-length film). He died at age 29. All that, yet he was able to claim a spot as the 33rd most influential/greatest director of all time. “L’Atalante” is Vigo’s one and only feature-length film. I liked the film; it was a pleasant but rather innocuous movie-watching experience, but given his high rank despite his short filmography, I expected more.

56. Werner Herzog – Aguirre, the Wrath of God. This film took a while to engage me. The beginning was slow with little dialogue; I started to think I was in for a tedious evening. Fortunately for my evening, the film became more interesting as it went on. There was a lot to like in “Aguirre,” but I’d call it “flawed” (ducking while film fans throw heavy objects at my head). I can see that Herzog is a director I need to explore more.

I fell behind in logging progress on this goal, so, instead of make one terribly long entry, I’m going to make three terribly long ones instead.

I’m splitting my update into: films I liked, films I didn’t like, and films that are somewhere in between. I’ll start with the group that will be hardest to write about (since I generally seem to have difficulty phrasing criticism): The ones I didn’t like.

18. Sergei Eisenstein – Battleship Potemkin, a silent film from 1925. Battleship Potemkin is one of those films that appear on many, many “bests” lists and that I’d heard about over and over again. I think the hype had raised my expectations too high. I do recognize the film as being groundbreaking cinema, but I did not enjoy it.

62. Douglas Sirk – Written on the Wind. This film was what I think of as “a director’s film.” It had angles and mirrors (Hitchcock loved using mirrors) and suggestive visuals. I felt that other than the directorial aspects, the film itself didn’t have much to recommend it; the story was soap opera quality. Personally, I am a movie-watcher that appreciates a film with a strong story and characters or even one that’s just plain fun over one that showcases a director’s visual talents. I give Sirk credit here, though: he put in a noble effort and managed to make the film look better than it is.

100. Glauber Rocha – I watched “Di Cavalcanti,” a short film. If I could have seen one of Rocha’s feature films, I would have. I’ve been searching for anything by Glauber Rocha for months. None of his films are on DVD. None of my local libraries have his work on VHS. For the past several months, his work hasn’t aired on television.

As for “Di Cavalcanti”: Beggars can’t be chosers. The film was in Portugese with no subtitles. I did my best to understand it based on what I saw and what I read the film was about. Well . . . I “didn’t like it” is being kind about how I felt about the film. The film was home movie quality taken with a crappy hand-held camera, and the hand holding the camera was not steady. The film consisted of footage of a funeral and a bunch of shots of paintings. It looked like Joe Nobody used a camera phone to film a funeral and then filmed some paintings while taking a tour of a museum. The lowlight was a close-up of a (real, actual) dead person’s face. This film was by far the most disappointing film I’ve seen as part of this goal.

I do know that one film doesn’t mean anything as far as my opinion of a director. I may love other Rocha movies. I disliked my first Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell (they sit at #43 on this Top 100) film, but really liked the second Pressburger-Powell film I saw. I liked my second Ingmar Bergman film much more than the first one I saw. I loved the first Fellini film I saw, thought my second Fellini was a disappointment, and found my third Fellini experience to be a “liked it but didn’t love it” experience.

I think when I’ve seen 1 movie by all of these directors, I am going to see 2 movies by all of these directors. And then 3 . . . although, how I’m going to get a hold of three Glauber Rocha films, I don’t know. I might just have to skip him. That is, if he doesn’t fall off the list when They Shoot Pictures updates it (they do that periodically).

9. Jean-Luc Godard – Breathless

After watching this movie, I did what I often do after watching a film considered classic or noteworthy in some way: I read what other people think about it. I like to scan what’s being said both on IMDB and on Netflix. The opinions on IMDB tend to be more favorable to “classics” than on Netflix. My impression is that IMDB’s message boards are populated more by film fans than casual movie-watchers; at least the boards for movies such as “Breathless” tend to skew toward cinephiles. The IMDB message board for a film like “Harry Potter” is likely to have wider variety of participants. Netflix, on the other hand, has a mix of cinephiles and general movie-watchers. I consider my husband one of the “general movie-watchers; he would call himself a “movie fan” and watches a decent number of movies, but he usually favors new releases and mainstream films. He catches older films and classics here and there, mostly when he happens to be in the room while I am watching one.

As for opinions on “Breathless,” the Netflix community was split just about down the middle. The ratings went about like: five stars, one star, four stars, two stars, five stars, one star, etc. That’s not unusual for a film like “Breathless.” I recall an Oscar Wilde quote about how good art divides. After seeing a film I’ve heard is classic/noteworthy, I’ve found myself both on the “I loved it” and “I hated it” side – I landed on the negative side in my previous entry about Luis Bunuel. With “Breathless,” I landed on the positive side.

That was quite the rambling entry, eh? Reader’s Digest version: I liked “Breathless.”

21. Andrei Tarkovsky – Stalker

It was interesting. I liked it. (Woohoo brevity!)

24. Michelangelo Antonioni – Blow Up

Hmmmm. The descriptive blurb that came with this film was misleading. This film was not, as I was lead to believe, a thriller about a photographer who takes a photograph, enlarges said photograph, and realizes he may have photographed a murder. The events described do in fact happen in the film, but they are not the focus of the plot nor what the film is about. The plot was about . . . a photographer . . . that takes pictures and . . . there’s a party and . . . some mimes play tennis . . . I see why the blurb-writer chose to focus on an element of the “plot” (I use the term loosely, since the movie didn’t have a traditional plot) that could be described. A more fitting description of the movie would be something like “A photographer does stuff (mostly takes pictures) not for plot or story or character, but as a vehicle for presenting and discussing philosophical ideas.”

Basically, this film wasn’t my cup of coffee. It was my least favorite of the three films in this entry. I’ve been noticing a trend in my taste: Movies that focus on 1960s culture tend to leave me cold. Movies set in or were made during the 60’s are fine; it is the ones that focus specifically on the philosophical and unique cultural aspects of the 1960’s way of life that tend to leave me scratching my head. If I’d been alive during that decade, perhaps I’d better understand films like “Blow Up.”

I watched 2 Luis Bunuel films in a row: “Un Chien Andalou” and “L’Age D’Or.”

Whoa.

I should start by saying that I have had a headache and a fluctuating fever for several days now. I keep passing in and out of delirium. That said . . .

Both films felt a lot like fever dreams. I’d almost think I dreamt up these films except I, thankfully, don’t dream about eyeballs getting sliced open.

Would the films have been as weird and incomprehensible if I’d been perfectly clear-brained when I watched them? From some of the reading I did after watching the films, I’ve gleaned that even non-delirious folks find these films to be head-scratchers. Without the explanations I read, I’d still be wondering what the heck I just watched.

I saw my first Yasujiro Ozu film: Tokyo Story. I went in knowing little about the plot, except it was set in Tokyo (duh) and about a family.

Wow . . . what a sad film (and a sad family). This film makes me want to call or write my mom.

This film made me think about a lot of things. I think most parents want (or perhaps “hope” is the right word) their children to grow up to be kind, generous, friendly, good human beings who will keep in regular contact and take care of them in their old age. Despite parents’ efforts to ensure such a result, how often does that wish come to fruition and how often do grown children turn out more like the situation in Tokyo Story? Especially in modern America, with “the me generation” (I’ve heard of a book called just that) I don’t think that the childrens’ abhorrent behavior is as far out of the norm as it should be.

I saw my first John Cassavetes-directed film: A Child is Waiting.

I hadn’t heard of this film. I’ve heard of some of Cassavetes’ other films, such as “A Woman Under the Influence.” That film is not available on DVD. “A Child is Waiting” is also not available on DVD. I saw it via Turner Classic Movies.

I watched the film knowing only that it was directed by Cassavetes, starred Judy Garland and one of my favorite leading men, Burt Lancaster, and it was about a teacher/school. I learned all of that from the little summary blurb attached to the film. Cassavetes’ name was what made me DVR the film, because watching a movie directed by him is part of this goal.

The more I watch movies I’ve heard little to nothing about, the more I think I most enjoy going into movies with as little knowledge and preconception as possible. The more I know about a film, the more I’m likely to have false expectations or be disappointed. A film that jumps to mind that I would have liked to have seen with less information about it beforehand: “The Fountain.” It can be a difficult film to follow on its own, but it was even more difficult for me because I had read a summary of the film that was blatantly wrong. I tried to reconcile the false plot summary with what I was seeing in the film, and it didn’t make sense.

I increasingly try to read as little about the plot or subject of films for another reason: spoilers. They pop up everywhere. I’ve had several movies “spoiled” for me.

As for “A Child is Waiting,” I liked it. It was the second film I’ve seen lately with Judy Garland in a dramatic non-musical role (the first being “Judgment at Nuremberg,” written by the same person as “A Child is Waiting,” Alan Mann). She has some acting chops.

After seeing this film, I am interested in seeing more of Cassavetes’ work.

I saw my first Chris Marker-directed film today: La Jetee (“The Pier.”) Like many of the films I’ve seen lately, this viewing was thanks to Turner Classic Movies.

It was a short film; just under 30 minutes long. Well, in actuality, it wasn’t really a “movie” or “film” at all, with “movie” being defined (by Answers.com) as “A sequence of photographs projected onto a screen with sufficient rapidity as to create the illusion of motion and continuity.” “Film” is defined by answers.com as “movie” and “motion picture.”

“La Jetee” was not a series of images projected quickly to create an illusion of movement. It was a series of still images presented one after another to create a visual narrative, with explanatory narration spoken over the stills. That is, except for a few seconds of motion. (A woman looks at the camera and blinks a few times.)

It was interesting, though. I didn’t know until I was reading a bit about the movie (I always wait until after seeing a movie to read about it so I don’t encounter spoilers) that the Bruce Willis film “Twelve Monkeys” is a remake of “La Jetee.”