November 14, 2003

Top 40.

"After all the discussion, no one could fault the conclusion that David Lynch is the most important film-maker of the current era."

David Lynch

And that discussion was held by a panel of Guardian critics - Peter Bradshaw, Xan Brooks, Molly Haskell, Derek Malcolm, Andrew Pulver, B Ruby Rich and Steve Rose - that has been so bold as to name "The world's best 40 directors." In order of importance, mind you, based on how each scores in terms of "Substance, Look, Craft, Originality" and "Intelligence."

Naturally, anyone would be a fool to take such rankings too seriously, but it's always great fun to sort through and note things like:

  • The top 5 are all American. Going down the list, the US's winning streak is halted only by Abbas Kiarostami at #6.
  • With Errol Morris at #7, a documentary filmmaker makes the top ten. But there's only one more, Michael Moore at #28.
  • Hey, hey, anime: Hayao Miyazaki at #8.
  • The British paper slips a British filmmaker into the top ten at #10: Terence Davies.
  • Lynne Ramsay hits the highest score for a woman: #12. But though there are two women on the panel, there's only one other woman on the list: Samira Makhmalbaf at #36; interestingly, her father, Mohsen, is not on the list at all.
  • 18 Americans in all, nearly half the bunch. Correction: Represented by three directors are Japan and the UK; by two directors: Taiwan and Iran. One each: Hong Kong, Brazil (Walter Salles, the only Latin American), Canada, Russia, France, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Denmark, Austria, Finland and Sweden.

    All in all, a fun page to scroll up and down. Particularly since, besides the blurbs, each director gets a link to a lengthier feature or interview. Also in the Guardian:

  • Jo Tuckman: "Mexico's cultural elite is on the warpath, determined to stop a sell-off of state cultural institutions that will, they say, remove the last barriers to American cultural domination."

  • Mark Lawson on Nick Broomfield's Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer: "Broomfield's sequel arose because the first film became evidence - and its director a defence witness - at Wuornos's final legal appeal before Governor Jeb Bush was able to attach her to the Florida grid and throw the switch."

  • Peter Preston on Sönke Wortmann's The Miracle of Bern, a box office smash in Germany that's brought tears to the eyes of the country's #1 soccer fan, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

  • "It used to be the young who shocked their elders by their indecent clothes, louche talk and 24/7 obsession with sex; but the laugh of the year is watching the young being horrified by their sexy elders - elders going public with their desires, their bums and even their eye-popping sexual fantasies." Katharine Whitehorn on The Mother, directed by Roger Michell and written by Hanif Kureishi.

    Friday Review: Vincent Gallo

  • And a Friday Review cover piece on Vincent Gallo by Jacques Peretti, who's made doc called 48 People Who Should Be Shot in Hollywood, based on an interview Gallo did with, who else, himself.

    Elsewhere, the New York Times's David Pogue sees the future and it's still expensive: "Pioneer's new DVR-810H and Elite DVR-57H. Each of these remarkable machines is a TiVo recorder, DVD player and DVD recorder in a single box, with one remote that also controls your TV." Yours for $1200 and $1800, respectively, though they might be found a bit cheaper after a lot of digging.

    The Economist: "Ever since Wittgenstein, philosophers have argued that mental experience is essentially public and objective in a way that makes it hard to make sense of the internalised reality that is portrayed in The Matrix. Philosophers have largely raised the question of brains in vats in order to dismiss it without another look."

    Nice conceit for a review: "TO: America; FROM: The BBC; Subject: FWD: 'The Office' on DVD." Shawn Badgley: "The Office... is mainly brave, effective, existential comedy, inducing as many roars as chuckles, as many grins as nods. It's also Britain's biggest hit, and as such is a refreshing blast of the anti-Aaron Sorkin, one of the States' biggest hitmakers: There are no stirring speeches, no conspicuous stances.... We can now only wait for US TV to ruin it in remake."

    Also in the Austin Chronicle: Anne S. Lewis on Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin, who was "black, gay (once arrested on a morals charge), once a member of the American Communist Party, once jailed as a World War II conscientious objector, and one of the architects of the civil rights movement."

    "Every now and then while I'm working in Japan, or here talking to the British journalists asking me about my films, while giving interviews I can't help shaking this fear of, 'What if I'm still dreaming?'" Takeshi Kitano, the 30th best director in the world, evidently, interviewed by Graeme Cole for kamera.co.uk.



    Bookmark and Share

    Posted by dwhudson at November 14, 2003 8:17 AM