Knife in the Water
Malle, Lift To The Scaffold…… and he was only 24!!
Three Days (Bartas / 1991)
Identification Marks: None (Skolimowski / 1964)
Diva (Beineix / 1981)
Buffalo ’66 (Gallo / 1998)
Un chien andalou (Bunuel / 1928)
Maboroshi (Koreeda / 1995) – he had made some documentaries before, though
Moe no suzaku (Kawase / 1996)
Reconstruction (Angelopoulos / 1970)
The 400 Blows (Truffaut / 1959)
Dangan Ranna (Sabu / 1996)
Permanent Vacation (Jarmusch / 1980)
Eraserhead (Lynch / 1977)
As Tears Goy By (Wong Kar Wai / 1988)
Red Sorghum (Zhang Yimou / 1987)
Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze / 1999)
Detektive (Rudolf Thome / 1968)
Bungalow (Ulrich Kohler / 2002)
48 Hours to Acapulco (Klaus Lemke / 1967)
Pather Panchali (Ray / 1955)
Rebels of the Neon God (Tsai Ming-liang / 1992)
The Needle (Rashid Nugmanov / 1988)
Konkurs (Forman / 1964)
The Fabulous Baker Boys (Kloves / 1988)
Chocolat (Denis / 1988)
A Charlie Brown Christmas (Melendez / 1965)
Basquiat (Schnabel / 1995)
The Apple (Samira Makhmalbaf / 1998)
Night of the Hunter (Laughton / 1955)
Beyond Hatred (Olivier Meyrou / 2006)
Has anyone mentioned Eraserhead? On a quick glance, I didn’t see it.
(I think my mind was still reeling from seeing Sex, Lies and Videotape and Withnail and I Listed along Citizen Kane and Badlands. Yeeeks!)
EDIT: Ok, Josh W listed it first…but this guy in the apartment above me hadn’t posted yet when I wrote mine. What a crowd!
You guys keep it down up there!!!
Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York”
Dark Star
Duel
Top 10 (in no particular order)
Shadows (J. Cassavetes)
Citizen Kane (O. Welles)
American Beauty (S. Mendes)
Bottle Rocket (W. Anderson)
The Bellboy (J. Lewis)
12 Angry Men (S. Lumet)
Knife in the Water (R. Polanski)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (M. Nichols)
Edge of the City (M. Ritt)
Reservoir Dogs (Q. Tarantino)
Eve’s Bayou (Written & Directed by Kasi Lemmons) is one of my favorite films as well as an incredible debut film for anyone, PERIOD.
Others I would include on the list:
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Mike Nichols)
The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola)
American Beauty (Sam Mendes)
She’s Gotta Have It (Spike Lee)
Boyz n the Hood (John Singleton)
Nothing But A Man (Michael Roemer) – this one’s a bit of a cheat because it’s actually the directors first narrative feature film, his actual first film was a documentary called Cortile Cascino (aka The Inferno).
Mean Streets wasn’t Scorsese’s debut …
But yeah, Citizen Kane is probably the most astounding.
Another two off the cuff:
Force of Evil (1948) – Abraham Polonsky
Yellow Earth (1984) – Chen Kagai
Errol Morris – Gates of Heaven
John Sayles – Return of the Secaucus Seven
Julie Taymor – Titus
Barbara Kopple – Harlan County, U.S.A.
Gary Oldman – Nil By Mouth
Bob Fosse – Sweet Charity
Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid – Meshes of the Afternoon
The SHE-BEAST! (Michael Reeves)
Eraserhead (David Lynch)
Clean, Shaven (Lodge Kerrigan)
Boyz N The Hood (John Singleton)
American Beauty (Sam Mendes)
Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino)
12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet)
Shadows (John Cassavetes)
Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett)
ivan’s childhood (tarkovsky)
>>The SHE-BEAST! (Michael Reeves)<<
I think the originator of this thread meant “astounding” in a good way, Joseph. Reeves got better, thank goodness…
Agree with Adriana on SYNECDOCHE, NY
Also: SEED OF CHUCKY (Don Mancini)
Many that I thought of have been named already…but:
I liked Whit Stillman’s “Metropolitan”
not sure how y’all receive this one, nevertheless Kelly’s “Donnie Darko”
400 blows, Reservoir Dogs, The Lives of Others
John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon
Meshes of the Afternoon was Deren’s but not Hammid’s debut, Witkacy. In fact it’s time he got more credit for his previous work and influence on her.
some top debuts:
Pather Panchali (Ray)
Maborosi (Kore-eda)
Citizen Kane (Welles)
Night of the Hunter (Laughton)
Innocence (Hadzihalilovic)
The Maltese Falcon (Huston)
Red Sorghum (Zhang Yimou)
Madchen in Uniform (Sagan)
Sleep Furiously (Koppel)
Silences of the Palace (Tlatli)
Badlands (Malick)
and The Apple (Samira Makhmalbaf) was tremendously promising from a teenager
.
Hadzihalilovic i’m counting as feature debut
It’s a pity new directors don’t usually get the same time to master the craft without too much pressure these days compared with many of the greats who started out in the silent era especially, eg Hitchcock, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Renoir, Ford… The temptation must be greater to make immediate career-defining attention-grabbers, which in turn often means superficial flashy effects or pretentious auteurist mannerisms. Sometimes you get a ready, fully-formed mature artist but it’s a rarity. And many of the big debuts turn out to be the director’s finest moment, even by the end of a long career.
Apichatpong Weerasethkul – Mysterious Object at Noon
Hunger (McQueen).
I couldn’t disagree more on Mysterious Object at Noon. I found that to be one of the more unrelentingly didactic endeavors. I have my fingers crossed in the hope that Apichatpong Weeaswethkul comes through with a winner, but nothing yet. SIGH!
BEING JOHN MALKOVICH by Spike Jonze
and most definitely CITY OF GOD by Fernando Meirelles
Witkacy wins.
I ordered Mysterious object at Noon but they ran out so I have to reorder it. Syndromes and a Century was brilliant, though.
An astounding debut I don’t think has been mentioned is The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein by John Gianvito from 2001.
Got to go with Ray’s Pather Panchali (1955). Incredibly, this masterpiece of world cinema was made by a man who had never directed a scene, shot by a still photographer (Mitra) who had never shot a foot of film, and by young actors hired without tryouts.
>>Witkacy wins
One only shudders at what possible prize this poor person will recieve for calling the Weeaswethkul snooze fest astounding. Keep us posted.
Xander
I thought Rian Johnson’s Brick was definitely an achievement.
Many of the ones listed so far have been great choices. Other than that, there’s:
Man Bites Dog
12 Angry Men
Buffalo ’66
Pi was pretty cool too.