I heartily concur witht he nomination of Borzage. His stuff is sensational.
(And you pronounce his name bor-ZOG-ee).
I don’t think Richard Rush gets enough credit. He did some good, solid work, and The Stunt Man from 1980 remains one of the finest American films ever.
Lodge Kerrigan. He’s completed only four films in about a decade and a half, but two of them—Clean, Shaven and especially Keane—are brilliant, as raw and vivid as any recent American film.
Philip Ridley.
Anyone who’s seen “The Reflecting Skin” will never forget it. Poor DVD-Region 1 release is available, although it may be OOP. It boasts one of Viggo Mortensen’s earliest and unabashed performances and also stars a lovely British actress, Lindsay Duncan.
Next was “The Passion of Darkly Noon”, unavailable except in the PAL format, starring Viggo, Brendan Fraser and Ashley Judd. I’d love to finally see it somehow.
Ridley wrote the script of “The Krays” and has penned many plays and several children’s books.
I just learned that he’s completed a new film (his first in over a decade) called “Heartless” starring Jim Sturgess (the young leading man who starred in Taymor’s “Across the Universe”). It’s rumored that it will premiere this spring at Cannes.
I believe Ridley is hugely talented and unknown. “Reflecting Skin” is masterful. It had to have been an inspiration for Gilliam’s “Tideland”.
FERZAN OZPETEK
Maybe this doesn’t count because her name has been growing slowly but steadily over the past several years, but I think for the large part Claire Denis is a name that most people aren’t familiar with. ‘Chocolat’, ‘Beau Travail’, and ’L’Intrus’ are all astonishingly beautiful films.
Marcel Pagnol
Hard to see any of his films besides the Marius trilogy.
Marcel Hanoun
Philippe Grandrieux
Fred Kelemen
Andrzej Żuławski is very underseen and underappreciated. Most of his films are hated by critics and audiences, but they’re def. not for everyone. I love them all.
Hal Hartley, Marco Ferreri, Jerzy Skolimowski are also very underseen.
@Christoper Sepesy
It is actually pronounced BORE-ZAYG-EE
Several years ago, Film Forum here in NYC ran a very impressive Naruse retrospective. I saw 34 of the 35 pictures (in the course of four or five weeks) and loved nearly all of them. Believe it or not, even after seeing that many of his pictures in such a short time, I was sorry to see the series end.
It’s a crying shame that only one of his movies is available on DVD in the US, but then again, they really are best experienced in a theatre.
Andre Techine
Monte Hellman- I must admit that I’ve only seen Two Lane Blacktop, but I’m looking forward to Ride in the Whirlwind and The Shooting- anybody seen those?
Tomas Alfredson- forget about “Let the Right One In”, “Fire nyanser av brunt” (Four Shades of Brown) is ridiculously overlooked and by far the best swedish film of the past 25 years.
Japanese cinema is a treasure chest filled with still unknown gems- I agree a 100 % on the comments here about Naruse and Mizoguchi. I guess names like Kobayashi, Suzuki, Shindo and Imamura are too big for this thread, but what the hell. Oh, and Masahiro Shinoda as well. There’s so many good japanese directors and films- makes me wanna learn japanese…
By the way, I’m half norwegian, half finnish- so I say: Kaurismäki is the man.
>I highly recommend the short films of Kenneth Anger.
Puce Moment is my favourite short film of all time….
Peter Watkins
Jörg Buttgereit
I couldn’t agree with Matt more: Lodge Kerrigan all the way. I’m eagerly waiting to see his next film, whatever it might be. Still haven’t been able to track down Claire Dolan, but I loved Clean, Shaven and Keane.
In terms of more classically Hollywood films, I like what Neil Burger has done so far.
Andrew Kötting, from England. “This Filthy earth” and “Gallivant” are great. He’s now working on “Ivul”
“Ride in the Whirlwind” and “The Shooting” are both great. ESPECIALLY “Ride in the Whirlwind”. I just recently watched “The Reflecting Skin” last week in my film studies class. That’s a winner. Also “Suburbia” by Richard Linklater is great and it doesn’t have a DVD release at all.
David Brooks
Juleen Compton
Conrad Rooks
Ira Schneider
Yoshishige Yoshida
Hans-Jurgen Syberberg
Shuji Terayama
Marguerite Duras
I completely agree that Yasuzo Masumura and Yuriy Norshteyn are underseen. I’m also surprised how little discussion there is of Wojciech Has… the man was an exceptional filmmaker, a more sober Jodorowsky. Actually, on the subject… did anyone else know that the dispute Jodorowsky had with his producer Allen Klein (which led to his films being unavailable to the public for a long time) was originally because he refused Klein’s offer to film an adaptation of The Story of O? Just found out a minute ago, kind of amusing.
A director that i just found out about was Federico Fellini. he is a director from Italy, and I heard that he is a really good director. I am going to start watching some of his films.
A director that i just found out about was Federico Fellini
[sigh]
On the light side, I’ve recently been enjoying Japanese comedy director Koki Mitani. I caught his latest film, THE MAGIC HOUR, at a fest last year and have since tracked down SUITE DREAMS and WELCOME BACK, MR. MCDONALD.
One of my personal favourite directors who is maybe not unknown or underseen but certainly never given any status as an auteur or considered for the entirety of his works is Peter Weir. PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK, THE LAST WAVE, GALLIPOLI, WITNESS, THE TRUMAN SHOW, MASTER AND COMMANDER and even his overtly liberal minded DEAD POET’S SOCIETY are all pretty notable. But Weir just ain’t hot property.
Wojciech Has (1925 – 2000)
- The Hour-Glass Sanatorium
- The Saragossa Manuscript
Kenji
Yevgeni Bauer deserves a .lot more attention for his advanced mastery of mise-en-scene, staging in depth, chairoscuro lighting within social dramas and melancholic, atmospheric and often mysterious mood pieces in the 1910s.