Perfect Directors: Introduction
In our short lives, if we’re looking in the right places and have the want for such a search, we sometimes find perfect directors; that is…
Perfect Directors: Robert Altman
I’m an American. That is to say, I’ve spent my entire life in the United States of America. Everything I know about the world–if not reality itself–is filtered through…
Perfect Directors: P.T. Anderson
Magical realism is a deceptively simple stylistic label that has often left artists floundering in their attempt to somehow create works that transcend the mundane…
Perfect Directors: Wes Anderson
Cozy worlds. That’s what Wes Anderson builds in his films: cozy worlds where everything is in its right place, every room and setting has character, and every character is fully…
Perfect Directors: Coen Brothers
Crime. Thriller. Drama. Comedy. Western. All are well-worn genres in film but it’s rare to have them fit into the same picture, much less mesh together to create a unique film. But this is the signature talent of the Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan. As original a pair as their films…
Perfect Directors: Jacques Tati
Directors don’t need to have a long list of movies on their resume to be considered great; in fact, it seems the more movies once heralded filmmakers make, the more likely they are to sully their own good fortune and reputation, living long enough to become the villain–or at least retroactively wreck their own reputation.…
Perfect Directors:
Orson Welles
What’s left to say about Orson Welles? One of the 20th century’s most acclaimed directors, his first film–which he made at 25, an age when most people still haven’t figured out how credit cards work–is still considered one of the greatest films of all time; his work experimented with the medium to such great success…
Perfect Directors:
David Lynch
Dark, uncompromising, and unapologetically weird, David Lynch’s Twin Peaks has prophetically returned to television 25 years after its last episode, just as Laura Palmer (or at least a spirit who looks like Palmer) promised to Dale. Well, that gum you like is going to come back in style…
Perfect Directors: Martin Scorsese
If there’s one unifying element to Martin Scorsese’s films, it’s alienation. Specifically, the alienation of his male protagonists: whether successes (Howard Hughes in The Aviator, Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street, or Sam “Ace” Rothstein in Casino), failures (Rupert Pupkin in The King of Comedy, Frank Pierce in Bringing Out the Dead, and…
Perfect Directors: Spike Lee
Listen: I am not black. In fact, I am one of the most lily-white people on the planet. Nor do I have any particular connection to Black culture besides what I’ve gleaned from media outlets, TV, and movies. What I’m trying to relate in this opening salvo is that the complex racial history of America…
Perfect Directors: Lindsay Anderson
Some directors don’t need a long filmography to secure their status as a perfect director. In fact, as it’s been demonstrated from the filmographies of Jacques Tati and Terrence Malick, respectively, sometimes the fewer films a director makes the better their overall reputation survives. After all, Terrence Malick made 5 perfect films in a row…
Perfect Directors: David Cronenberg
Cerebral, dark, oddly humorous, and obsessed with the inextricable relationship between the body and the psyche, David Cronenberg’s work is difficult to describe. Is he a sci-fi director obsessed with body horror? A dramatist that uses horror as a way…
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