What's Your "Type"? (Of Director)
Saturday, May 7, 2011 at 11:30AM Making the Movies has a good piece up called "The Four Types of Filmmaker". On first impression it feels spot on, apart from some arguable placements once they get around to naming names. They divvy filmmakers up into four groups: The Meticulous Master (obsessive, detailed... sometimes they take forever), The Prolific Pro (wide range of quality but constantly filming), The Irrepressible Entertainer (uneven but always serving the audience first), and the Reverent Referentialist (mashing up recycling and reconfiguring all their favorite movies and movie tropes). I'm simplifying -- it's worth reading for fuller explanations.
Masters, Pros, Entertainers, Referentialists
You could and I think should argue for a Fifth Type, "The Hired Hand", the men and women who work but aren't regularly labelled as "auteurs". This type only wows when the project feels just right for them in a way, or when the project itself has so much else going for it. But they can "wow" nonetheless. The thing that I found most surprising about the four categories once I stopped to look at the people falling under each umbrella -- and there are a few who seem like they could flip categories with ease -- is how much there is to love in each group. Maybe I don't have a type. Maybe that means I'm a big whore for the movies?
Do you have a type?
Directors
Reader Comments (23)
anybody else think fincher's more of a pro than a master? his material is usually adapted and he rolls the camera a LOT, continuous projects especially lately. i mean does someone in the same category as PTA adapt a bestselling blockbuster book that's already been adapted once?
moviejoe -- yeah. he's certainly meticulous but the rest of it might not apply
I have favorites in every category and I'd love to be in any of them one day, so I can't choose.
I love the list and agree, I don't have a type. I wonder where Olivier Assayas, Gregg Araki, Kelly Reichardt, Mirandy July, Clare Denis, Todd Haynes, Cuaron would fall...
Is Kathryn Bigelow really the only female director they bothered to classify? Unless I'm missing somebody.
I liked one of the commenter's suggestion of a category for "spiritual" - really visceral, mood-driven films instead of dialogue or plot. Certainly more female directors would fall into that category - Sofia Coppola and Jane Campion. And Terrence Malick, David Lynch and Wong Kar-Wai.
Caroline -- yes. yes. less narrative. more mood. so six categories. ;)
1. Control Freak -- Stanley Kubrick, James Cameron, David Fincher, Wes Anderson, Terrence Malick, Streisand and Beatty (for actor turned director Control Freaks)
2. Writer-Directors -- Woody Allen, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Pedro Almodovar, Alexander Payne
3. Entertain Me -- Steven Spielberg, David Cronenberg, Paul Verhoeven
4. Homework more than Entertainment -- Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Christopher Nolan
5. Weirdos -- David Lynch, Spike Lee, Tim Burton, Terry Gillian, Lars von Trier
I was going to choose The Reverent Referentialist but I don't get what on earth are Lucas, Snyder and Smith doing next to Truffaut or Allen
Actually I prefer /3rtfu11 list: writer/directors forever!
My favorite director is Sofia Coppola. She'd have to be a master right? None of the others seem to fit.
I don't think Woody Allen is a Reverent Referentialist. If someone's a Prolific Pro, it's him. He's been making one movie a year for almost forty years and with a large range of quality.
I wonder what you would call someone like Steven Soderbergh? He makes dozens of movies, and even if they're bad, you can't say they're unoriginal or half-assed.
And what of the kind that forever seek to make you have some sort of exisential, political, or emotional revelation?
is mike leigh a master?
What about directors like Zhang Yimou who have made a radical transition from one group to the other. Whilst I wouldn't argue with Hero, House of Flying Daggers etc. being pegged as "irrepressible entertainment," Raise The Red Lantern, Red Sorghum and Ju Dou most definitely fall under meticulous master.
I would argue that Clint Eastwood is in that 5th type you mentioned, Nathaniel.
Also, if you're a whore, so am I. LOL
My favorite horror filmmakers are referentialists, for sure. The Pang Brothers and Lucky McKee in particular make it quite clear they know their roots while still innovating within the form. The Eye (the original, not that Jessica Alba thing) is the most referential horror film I've ever seen that still manages to feel like something fresh and new.
Otherwise, I'm drawn to meticulous masters because I like dense texts and like to be challenged. I want to have something to sink my teeth into and revisit again and again if I so choose.
Spielberg is my favorite director, but I'm not sure I give so much credit to all those "types" you came up with.
I don't really see the problem in being concerned about pleasing your own audience. You call Spielberg an entertainer - yeah, he's Hollywood's master entertainer, unlike a talented egotist such as Von Trier, who admittedly makes movies to annoy/confront his art-house audiences or specialty visionaries like Lynch, who create challenging stuff for a selected few. In their own way, they're all artists nonetheless, trying to communicate with people.
Favorite directors in all categories, so I can't choose.
von Trier and Hanwke are weirdoes and Allen is a writer-director. How about Lumet or Nichols, or all five whose films feel like plays? I don't know what to call them.
Gustavo -- i did not come up with the types. I'm talking about the article over at that website.
If you read the text it doesn't slam the entertainers either -- and i'd totally agree that there's nothing wrong with caring about the audience -- but all "types" have their drawbacks and one of the most interesting critiques in the article is that the Entertainers often have underdeveloped patches within their films, if it's not something that's specifically hitting an audience pleasing note.
This is definitely true of Eastwood -- who they categorize there, but I think Eastwood belongs in the Prolific Pro category instead.
Ripley -- they have soderbergh classified under "prolific pro" because good great bad or indifferent he's constantly making movies.
Chris Nolan? None of the above. OK OK, the Entertainer I guess (though I have yet to be entertained). I just wanted to get one Nolan dig in before the fanboys descend. :)
Great article. Thanks for the link. Just left a response on their website and am going to repeat it here since no one has mentioned him either:
Ummm. Ang Lee anyone? Seriously, no mention of him.
Probably fits #2 the best, but could qualify with 1 and 3 as well (absolutely prolific though: drama, western, comedy, hippy biography, Chinese sexual melodrama, gay western, martial arts action, English period piece, food based allegory, superhero fantasy, foreign gay romantic comedy, historical lifestyle, etc.). For me, the best director working today with the widest range of themes of the last 20 years of any director. Has anyone done as many different types of films as him - and have they been so consistently successful?
tallsonofagun -- yeah, i would think the genre and theme hopping would place LEE in the "prolific pro" category but he's still somehow underrated despite all the acclaim. I think it's because the movie's aren't overtly masculine in their p.o.v. or themes or whatnot which is generally true of the most acclaimed filmmakers (with a couple of obvious exceptions).
but i'm so glad that he has devoted fans.