Top Ten Triple: Time Tables 'Tween Movies
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 5:02PM Generally speaking a human infant can be produced in nine months. Baby elephants take two years. But when it comes to directors birthing their next celluloid or digitial babies, the time tables from conception to birth remain a calendrical mystery. Outside of Woody Allen, who brings an infant film into the world each and every year and Clint Eastwood, who often has twins, there's just no telling!
It's so hard to please movie buffs
We're thinking about this because Darren Aronofsky is lining up his post Black Swan project and Serious Film was just rejoicing over the news that P.T. Anderson is back to work. His thinly veiled Scientology film, formerly titled "The Master" has a June start date. Michael is like Goldilocks on the topic of time between pictures and we are too -- it's hard to satisfy us! -- but the Robert Altman / Martin Scorsese time table, a film every two or so years, is deemed "just right".
Michael writes:
Sure that makes them more vulnerable to the occasional dud, but it also opens them up to all the interesting follies and surprise discoveries that wind up being as treasured as their major masterpieces. Marty would never had produced anything as odd and discomfiting as King of Comedy if he has been moving at the glacial pace of a Terrence Malick, and the cinematic landscape would have been poorer for it.'
Can he get an amen?
We're limiting the following lists to living filmmakers / post-studio time frame because everyone was more regular when films ruled the world (prior to tv) and were assembled with greater efficiency. So for today's lists, let's look at the slowpokes, inbetweeners and quickies. These are not exact lists -- imagine trying to research every director in the world and we've also extracted shorts, tv films and documentaries -- but lists of commonly discussed feature filmmakers and a few of our favorites thrown in for good measure.
DISCLAIMER: We're fully aware that financial backing is a factor in speed but have to ignore it for the purposes of this article. Also, we're aware that release dates don't always reflect timetables but you try looking up start of filming dates versus release date disparity on thousands of movies.
also: eating, sleeping, thinking, applying sunscreen.
SLOWPOKES
Listed from the very slowest to quickest among the slow. One is forced to imagine that the following filmmakers actually hibernate inbetween films. Only intense hunger pains ever reawaken them. This list is dedicated to Spike Jonze (who has only made 3 features since he started movies and they're all brilliant. But three is no kind of legacy: Commit!) and to Jonathan Glazer who we can only assume is having problems with financing. He's only made 2 films, both of them wonderful, in the past 10 years. His next feature is supposedly Under the Skin (2014) which would arrive a full decade after Birth, one of the most brilliant films of the Aughts.
- Terrence Malick
Quickest: 5 years between Badlands and Days of Heaven.
Slowest: 20 years between Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line.
Rough Breakdown: One film every seven and ½ years (5 films thus far) - Baz Luhrmann
Quickest: 4 years between Strictly Ballroom and Romeo + Juliet
Slowest: 7 years between Moulin Rouge and Australia
Rough Breakdown: One film every four years and 9 months (4 films thus far) - David Lynch
Bob, Dale Cooper and Lynch in the prolific Twin Peaks years.Quickest: He's managed one year gaps on occasion
Slowest: 5 years between Mulholland Dr and INLAND EMPIRE
Rough Breakdown: One film every four years (10 films thus far) - James Cameron
Quickest: 2 years between The Terminator and Aliens
Slowest: 12 years between Titanic and Avatar
Rough Breakdown: One film every four years or so (8 films thus far) - Kathryn Bigelow
Quickest: 2 year gaps a few times
Slowest: 7 years between K-19: The Widowmaker and The Hurt Locker
Rough Breakdown: One film every four years (8 films thus far) - Christopher Guest
Quickest: Usually 3 years
Slowest: 7ish years between his debut The Big Picture and Waiting for Guffman
Rough Breakdown: One film every three years and 9 months (6 films) - Alfonso Cuaron
Quickest: 2 years between Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Children of Men
Slowest: Children of Men was 5 years ago and who knows when Gravity will be ready.
Rough Breakdown: One film every three years and 4 months (6 features) - John Cameron Mitchell
Quickest/Shortest: Aint no such thing.
Rough Breakdown: One film every three years and 4 months (3 features) - Jane Campion
Quickest: 1 year between An Angel at My Table and Sweetie
Slowest: 6 years between In the Cut and Bright Star
Rough Breakdown: One film every three years and 2 months -- but she's been getting slower and slower progressively which is why we listed here instead of in the next grouping. Frustrating! (7 films thus far) - Peter Weir
Quickest: He's done a couple of back-to-back films.
Slowest: 7 years between Master and Commander and The Way Back
Rough Breakdown: One film every two years and 10 months but increasingly slower (13 features thus far) which is why he's here instead of in the next field.
Work faster Quentin. Think of how Uma flounders without you!ERRATIC AND/OR INBETWEENERS
Sometimes speedy. Sometimes lethargic. They make us crazy in the gaps but we're always falling back in love. Listed beginning with the slowest.
- Quentin Tarantino
Quickest: Short gaps between Deathproof & Basterds and Reservoir Dogs & Pulp Fiction
Slowest: 6 years between Jackie Brown and Kill Bill
Rough Breakdown: One film every three years and 2 months (6 films if you only count Kill Bill once) - Cameron Crowe
Quickest: Vanilla Sky followed immediately on the heels of Almost Famous
Slowest: 6 years between Elizabethtown and this year's We Bought A Zoo.
Rough Breakdown: One film every three years and 2 months (7 films thus far) - Paul Thomas Anderson
Quickest: Hard Eight to Boogie Nights (released the same calendar year)
Slowest: This will be the upcoming gap between The Untitled Project (2013) and There Will Be Blood (2007) which will be a six year space. Argh! Previously it was There Will Be Blood (2007) and Punch Drunk Love (2002) we don't like the trending. He's only 40 and shouldn't be so easily fatigued.
Rough Breakdown: One film every three years (5 films) - Alexander Payne
Quickest: 2 years between About Schmidt and Sideways
Slowest: This long wait between Sideways and The Descendants (it'll be 7 years!)
Rough Breakdown: One film every three years (5 films) - Wong Kar Wai
Quickest: Chungking Express and Ashes of Time were back-to-back.
Slowest: It'll be at least five years between My Blueberry Nights and the one he's working on now.
Rough Breakdown: One film every two years and 7 months (9 films) - Darren Aronofsky
Quickest: 2 years between Pi and Requiem and again between The Wrestler and Black Swan
Slowest: 6 agonizing years between Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain
Rough Breakdown: One film every 2 ½ years (5 films thus far) - Werner Herzog
*SPECIAL CASE* He makes so very many documentaries of different sizes that if you include those he's as fast or faster than Allen and Eastwood. But we're talking about regular features. Not that Herzog is a regular artist.
Quickest: The late 70s. Heart of Glass and Stroszek were back to back with Nosferatu nipping in their near future.
Slowest: 9 years between Scream of Stone and Invincible
Rough Breakdown: One film every 2 ½ years (17ish? features thus far) - Francis Ford Coppola
Quickest: Incredibly two of the best films of the 1970s (which is saying a lot right there), The Godfather Part II and Conversation happened in the same year, and were both nominated for Best Picture!
Slowest: Ten years between The Rainmaker and Youth Without Youth
Rough Breakdown: One film every two years and four months... but it's much much less frequent than it once was. And I'm only counting from You're a Big Boy Now because those early years are super confusing as to what his "debut" was. - Lars von Trier
Quickest: Manderlay and The Boss of it All were back to back
Slowest: 5 years between Europa and Breaking The Waves (a major style change)
Rough Breakdown: One film every 2 years and 3 months (12 features thus far) - Steven Spielberg
Quickest: quite a few twice a year endeavors
Slowest: 4 years between Schindler's List and Amistad
Rough Breakdown: One film every 17 months. But erratically. He does go in spurts and sometimes doubles up.
QUICKIES!
Listed from fastest to the slowest among the quick. Wait, what? This list is dedicated to Takashi Miike, most famous for the hugely disturbing Audition (1999) and über violent Ichi the Killer (2001)...
Takashi Miike, Woody Allen and Manoel de Oliviera -- three of the most prolific directors in the world.
....but we don't really understand the breakdown of his filmography since he does everything (video, features, shorts, whatsamagjiggits) and is constantly filming. IMDb lists 82 completed titles in the past 20 years though not all of those are traditional feature films. His latest feature 13 Assassins is currently in theaters and on demand.
- Woody Allen
Quickest: This doesn't appy as he's like THE metronome among filmmakers.
Slowest: Since his first solo directorial debut -- Take The Money and Run (1969) there have only been 4 calendar years without a Woody Allen release: 1970, 1974, 1976 and 1981 (he was a smidgeon slower in the decade that made him a household name. Maybe that slightly slower schedule helped?)
Rough Breakdown: One film every year (42 films thus far) - Steven Soderbergh
Quickest: He's had a few double release years.
Slowest: His first four films from Sex, Lies and Videotape through The Underneath had two year gaps between releases. After that he cast off the human need for sleep and just filmed 24/7.
Rough Breakdown: One film every year or so (22 films thus far) - Clint Eastwood
Quickest: He's done two in one year six times now.
Slowest: 3 years between The Gauntlet and Bronco Billy
Rough Breakdown: One film every 16 months or so. (32 films thus far) - Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Quickest: Lately they've been on a Woody Allen style tear with a film a year since No Country For Old Men.
Slowest: They've had 3 year gaps a couple of times.
Rough Breakdown: One film every 22 months (15 films thus far) - Ridley Scott
Quickest: Back-to-backers a few times.
Slowest: 3 years between G.I. Jane and Gladiator
Rough Breakdown: About one film every 21 months (19 films thus far) - Pedro Almodóvar
Quickest: Matador, Law of Desire and Women on the Verge... back-to-back-to-back in mid80s. Bam!
Slowest: 3 year gaps between All About My Mother and Talk to Her and between Volver and Broken Embraces.
Rough Breakdown: One film every 21 months (18 films thus far) - Christopher Nolan
Quickest: Batman Begins and The Prestige were in back-to-back years
Slowest: 3 years between Insomnia and Batman Begins
Rough Breakdown: About one film every 22 months (7 films thus far) - Martin Scorsese
Quickest: Back-to-backers a few times.
Slowest: 6 years between Who's That Knocking at My Door, his debut, and Mean Streets, his calling card.
Rough Breakdown: One film every 2 years (22 films thus far. If you add in all full length documentaries, he's faster though still not fast like Woody Allen) - David Fincher
Quickest: 1 year betwen Zodiac and Benjamin Button
Slowest: 5 years between Panic Room and Zodiac
Rough Breadkown: One film every 2 years and a month or so ;) (9 films thus far with December's Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) - Ang Lee
Quickest: four films back-to-back at the beginning from Pushing Hands thru Sense & Sensibility
Slowest: 3 years between Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Hulk. The wait between Taking Woodstock and Life of Pi could easily prove longer.
Rough Breakdown: One film every two years but definitely slowing down, damnit (11 films thus far)
Other Directors who fit this bill: Wes Anderson, one feature every two and a half years thus far. Spike Lee makes one film every year and half (roughly... though erratically. But he's even busier, even if he doesn't seem like it, if you include all the documentaries)
Generally and/or specifically speaking, what do you make of these timetables?
Do you find yourself impatient when it comes to your favorite filmmakers? Who do you think is "just right". Have at it in the comments.
Reader Comments (41)
Luckily, Malick basically turned around after Tree of Life and started his next one. Very odd for him.
Wes Anderson is a pretty consistent 3 years between films.
Christopher Guest films always seem to amuse me so much but it feels like he hasn't made one in YEARS (its been 5 since For Your Consideration)...is he giving up?
Spielberg could be included in either the erratic or quickie category, depending on how you break it down, but he definitely works in spurts.
Since '93
'93 Jurassic Park/Schindler's (possibly the best year ever for a mainstream Hollywood director)
'97 Lost World/Amistad
'98 Private Ryan
'01 A.I.
'02 Minority Report/Catch Me
'04 The Terminal
'05 War of the Words/Munich
'08 Crystal Skull
'11 Tintin/War Horse
'12(?) Lincoln Biopic
Aren't the Coen Brothers pretty prolific?
No Country and Burn After Reading back to back, A Serious Man And True Grit back to back.
Scratch that...four films in four years. Wow!
Danny Boyle I'd probably put in the Erratic or Quickies category, probably more on the "Quickie" side though since he usually has a pretty consistent 2-3 years inbetween films, at least from just glancing back over his IMDB filmography.
Sorry, forgot to put this in my previous post but REALLY liked this feature a lot, and definitely think it would be interesting to apply this to other categories, whether it's with other film careers (cinematographers and composers, especially) or with franchises (Quickies like Transformers, versus Slowpokes like Tron, etc)...just an idea! =)
As I said in my post, Alexander Payne is the one who drives me batty. The hat trick of Election, Schmidt, and Sideways and then like Keyser Soze - poof - he's gone.
And you should add Peter Weir to the slowpokes.
David Lynch: should be making more movies. He's a digital guy now and works independently from the studio system, receives foreign money, and actors are willing to work for nothing without a finished script and making things up as they go along with 40 minute takes.
Paul Verhoeven: Hollywood is a sick place not to give him money to direct anything.
Paul Thomas Anderson: is having a 3rd child with Maya Rudolph. He isn't working with his longtime cinematographer anymore and he's making his first spherical film since Hard Eight/Sydney -- this time with the 65mm format Kubrick used for 2001.
Tarantino: his movie is already in pre-production. What's going on with Spike Lee?
Spike Jonze: where are you? Mike Nichols: fire that TV director and Meryl Streep from August: Osage County -- please!
Wong Kar-Wai, too slow. I can't wait!
Speedy: festival darling and 102 years old Manoel de Oliveira. More than a movie per year since 1990. And his best movies are the latest ones. Last decade was full of masterpieces. He would be the winner for his age alone, but, you know, he is really really fast,
Payne and Wong Kar Wai for sure! They break my heart how good they are and how infrequently they work. Cannot wait for the Descendants, did y'all see the clip?
I love the dedication to Miike. What's crazy about his pace of work is that all his movies are either really good or brilliant. Need to see 13 Assassins asap, plus he's got his next debuting at Cannes this week! Does he sleep or even take breaks to eat?
Wong Kar-Wai as erratic. Fast during the 90s (One every two years, roughly) but too slow during the 00s. I hope The Grand Master gets a premiere this year, and doesn't wait until Cannes next year.
As for speedy, David Gordon Green is coming up to take that mantle. Pineapple Express, Snow Angels, Your Highness and the Sitter within four years.
I think Ingmar Bergman averaged roughly 1 a year for over thirty years.
Very interesting. Thinking about the research that you did for this gives me a little headache, great job. I think for some filmmakers they put so much into their movies that they need to mentally recover from their process for a while. Also, I had no idea that Baz Luhrmann was sort of dashing.
This article is spectacular! Thanks Nat!
Nice article ,thanks for the information.
Quickies: Gus Van Sant, Hayao Miyazaki, Tim Burton, Stephen Frears
Erratics: Alfonso Cuáron, Von Trier,
Slowpokes: Milos Forman, Kubrick, George Lucas, John Cameron Mitchell, Jonathan Glazer
Ps. You have to make this list with actors.
RJ -- it's true but we shouldn't count our chickens. who knows when he'lll actually, you know, finish that one. the one after Tree of Life.
James -- i addded christopher guest, great suggestion.
Warren -- i thought about including Bergman and Altman and Kubrick but realized we should stick to living directors to give it some coherent shape. But it's interesting how you can't divvy up the artists into "slow". There's artists in each category. why do some people take so goddamn long? is it truly their process or do they just have complicated work and personal lives or lots of problems? or , in some cases, is it just laziness lack of inspiration?
Zhang Yimou has a pretty consistent streak, one film every 2 years (with a few exceptions). And I'm so glad Almodovar is the quickie column ;)
With what you said about Jane Campion, she sounds like the Kate Bush of cinema, which is frustratingly true. I want and miss pretty. Give us pretty, Jane Campion. Also, she should have been the first woman to win Best Director.
So happy to hear Alexander Payne back to work.
Didn't Peter Weir have an 8-year break b/w Dead Poets' Society and Truman Show? I love Weir, so glad to see him back with Way Back. Can't wait to see it!
Jane Campion had zero notable films between Piano and Bright Star so it seemed like a long time.
Coens are a great choice! I'm so glad they work a lot, they are so good! Minnesota represent!
He's fallen off the radar since Gigli, but Martin Brest was also pretty poky when he made films, with six years between Scent of a Woman and Meet Joe Black, which also happen to be remakes.
Orrin -- actually he made two films inbetween those, Green Card and Fearless. He used to work much more quickly than he does now. This seems to be the general trend though -- fast at the beginning, slower and slower as the career gets going (when you'd think financing would be easier!). The other thing -- though maybe i'm imagining it -- is weird gaps after someone's biggest success or failure, like in both cases, it makes them scared to get back in the saddle.
Where is Spike Lee? I've often found his output patterns to be interesting.
"This seems to be the general trend though -- fast at the beginning, slower and slower as the career gets going (when you'd think financing would be easier!). The other thing -- though maybe i'm imagining it -- is weird gaps after someone's biggest success or failure, like in both cases, it makes them scared to get back in the saddle."
Personally, I think once a director becomes successful and y'know starts to actually make money, s/he takes a break and just enjoys what money can buy - be it houses, vacations, and just time away from the grind of working. As for the long gap between films that are either great successes or flops, I think the it's either due to the director perhaps taking time to bask in the success (if the movie is successful) or taking time off to recuperate and rethink what went wrong and/or what to do for the next project (if the movie wasn't successful).
Troy, i added Spike Lee to the "others directors who fit this bill" now that there's 10 in each category. He's actually speedy. It just seems like he isn't given how long it's been he was a major topic of discussion.
Loved this, Nathaniel!
@Paolo - Amen, brother.
I agree with those who say Spike Lee ought to be added to the list, btw.
@Nate: Thanks, man. You are so accommodating.
I've often wondered what the planning process is like for filmmakers. How much time goes into conceiving/seeking/vetting projects? Developing them? Do they work on multiple movies at once in various stages or give each its own gestation period (I'm reminded of Robert Zemeckis's shooting "What Lies Beneath" while waiting for Tom Hanks to lose weight for "Castaway")? In the case of a person like Spielberg in his two-film years, do they intend for one to be more commercial and other other more "highbrow"?
I'm a big fan of Weir so I'm embarrassed for having missed those two. Those are really small films in terms of box office gross and number of theaters they opened up to. Same with The Way Back. Is it an alternating pattern between big budget pictures and small independent films or were Way Back and Greencard marketed wrong?
I don't think it's true that a big success makes a director more scared. I notice most Oscar winning directors have a pretty ambitious follow-up that's usually a pretty significant change in direction: Zemmeckis with Contact, Manghellia with Talented Mr Ripley, Nicholls with Catch-22, Demme with Philadelphia, Coens with Burn After Reading, Serious Man; Soderbergh for whom making a tentpole film was pretty significant departure, James L Brooks with Broadcast News, Boyle with 127 Hours, Coppolla with Marie Antoinette, Paul Haggis for In the Valley of Ellah
I think Redford and Sidney Pollack took a while to make their next film after winning Oscars
Orrin -- hmmm. i just think it spooks people. I mean, why else did Cameron disappear after TITANIC? i think both success and failure are terrifying to people when the best answer is clearly to always jump right back on the horse (though maybe that's just cuz i'm greedy for films.)
i'm into quantity with my quality ;)
coppola and tarantino are not really inconsistent - they both took lengthy breaks from filmmaking, but were consistent both before they stopped and after they started again.
i don't mind the fast workers - eastwood has had his share of mediocre to bad movies, as has allen and all the either speedy gonzales - but their failures are interesting ones, and their successes speak for themselves. i get far more impatient waiting five years for PT Anderson to get off his ass.
the funniest recent slow worker is alexander payne, who after sideways said he was going to make some big political film because there was such urgency to make art at that time (early 2005, i guess this would have been). and he then proceeded to not make a movie for seven years, apart from his really great short film contribution to Paris J'Taime.
I love Baz. Him and Pedro Almodovar's work are what I truly look forward to.
What about Víctor Erice? He's a true master but very little known.
He has directed 3 films/masterpieces: El espíritu de la colmena (74), El sur (83) and El sol del membrillo (92)
Such a great article, Nate.
The ones that kill me the most are Malick, Luhrmann, Cuaron (still no follow up to Children of Men!) and P.T. Anderson. Also, Aronofsky's 6 year gap between Requiem and Fountain scares me into thinking he'll do it again soon. Ditto Fincher for Panic Room and Zodiac though he seems to have found/regained his mojo.
Spike Jonze and Jonathan Glazer just worry me. Both are fantastic but I just don't hold my breath for either.
You forgot my favorite director! The brilliant Gregg Araki has made 8 films in 18 years (average wait time: 2 years, 3 months), but lately he has typically been leaving us waiting for three years or more between black comic masterpieces.....His latest, KABOOM! (the only one I haven't seen) comes out on DVD here in the USA on May 31....
AD -- oooh Araki woulda been good to feature.
Has anyone mentioned George Lucas? He went twenty-two years between A New Hope and The Phantom Menace, did two more prequels and is nearing ten years since Sith with no directing project in sight. Where would he fall?
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