Thursday, March 17, 2011

Frequently Asked Questions #3

Who's your favorite Director?

Dumb question.

Seriously, that's up there with "Who's your favorite artist?" or "Who's your favorite animator?" or "What's your favorite color?". What are we on a first date?

An artist should be intimately familiar with thousands of examples of other artists' work and should be able to examine each piece maturely enough to move beyond adolescent "I like that" or "Don't like that" reactions. The thought process should be "Why did he/she make that decision?" and "Was that effective in communicating to the audience?" and "Would that same choice STILL be effective in communicating to an audience?"

So instead of answering the question directly, I am going to spend a few blogs listing the work of some of the Directors whose work I find the most effective, one Director at a time. At the very least, any serious film student should be familiar with these films.

So get to Amazon, get these films, and remember to take notes. Your entire life's work will be a test later.

Michael Curtiz

Doctor X,
Mystery of the Wax Muse
um,
The Kennel Murder Case,
Front Page Woman (if you can find it)
Captain Blood,
The Adventures of Robin Hood,
Angels with Dirty Faces,
Dodge City,
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex,
Santa Fe Trail,
Virginia City,
The Sea Hawk,
The Sea Wolf,
Casablanca,
Yankee Doodle Dandy,
Mildred Pierce,
Night and Day,
White Christmas,
We're No Angels,
King Creole,
The Comancheros


How's that for a career with variety?