Satyajit Ray
Ingmar Bergman
Robert Bresson
Kazuo Hara
Allan King
Sohrab Shahid Saless
Nobuhiro Suwa
Apursansar,
Thank you for your suggestions. I haven’t watched anything from Kazuo Hara, Allan King, Sohrab Shahid Saless or Nobuhiro Suwa. I will definitely check them out.
Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Aki Kaurismäki
One that I noticed recently is David Fincher. He tends to have intense, and dark stories, but they tend to center around an emotional core of humanity.
Béla Tarr
Claire Denis
Abbas Kiarostami (to a certain degree)
Patrick Keiller
Yasojiro Ozu
Albert and David Maysles
On that latter note, a quote from Albert: “A movie, a documentary must be made from love. Love of the subject. You cannot be a good filmmaker if you do not love human beings.” From the ironically titled Michael Moore Hates America.
—PolarisDiB
Thank you very much, my fellas. I really appreciate your input. There is certainly a lot to dig in!
Um … Renoir. The Rules of the Game. It’s a textbook for what you are asking. Grand Illusion a close second.
I’d then recommend Ozu, Bresson, Dryer, some Bergman, some Kurosawa … Satyajit Ray, definitely. And Cassavetes and Altman, especially Faces and Nashville, respectively.
Lynne Ramsay
Karin Albou
John Ford
Luis Bunuel
Roberto Rossellini
Jacques Tourneur
gawd I’m boring.
ROBERTO ROSSELLINI
AHHHHHHHHHHH
Also, in his own way, Verhoeven. The only filmmaker willing to show our disgusting side, without embellishment (I’m looking at you Gaspar Noe). People picking through lover’s shit, brains blown out but never fetishistic. But he believes in people. Like Rossellini, he sees evil where it is, and attacks it without mercy.
Oh, yeah, one more … Martin Ritt.
We forget him too often and leave him out of these conversations. His work was almost exclusively devoted to the idea of the triumph of the human spirit. Start with Sounder, Hud, and The Front.
If Cassavetes counts then so does Rivette, with regard to his focus on performance as a meaningful act, of the way people move around in and what happens as they do so. Even if this comes from a position of some slight metaphysical distance.
Out of all the great avant-garde film makers, only the late James Broughton (who I don’t particularly like) seems to meet those criteria.
I would say the elephant in the room here is comedy (Keaton, Chaplin, Elaine May, Jerry Lewis) and action (especially Michael Mann, McTiernan, Eastwood), both genres which are all about the details of physical behavior, often rigorously observed.
My personal favorite is Johnnie To – how many films of his half the action at standstill, so he can shoot a beautiful scene of the main characters eating a gigantic dinner?
I agree with NRH when he says comedy, especially physical.
Satyajit Ray and Yasujiro Ozu came to mind. With Ray, there are moments when the story diverts away from the characters to focus on the environment and nature surrounding them. With Ozu, he focuses on the little things inside of a room before the characters even walk in (maybe so we can become aquainted and comfortable).
I hope this helps, good sir.
Like Rossellini, he sees evil where it is, and attacks it without mercy.
This should be a new thread. Filmmakers that see evil and attack it. A very interesting topic.
@Jerry
Ive got some for that: Gaspar Noe, Lars Von Trier, Todd Solondz, Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick…
But doesn’t every director tackle evil at some point?
@ Jerry and Loveroflecinema:
I like how Michael Mann tackled evil by making it look like a Jack Kirby villain and having evil shoot lazers,or magical energy, or whatever you might call it.
My own view is that Noe and Von Trier give evil blow jobs rather than an attack. And that Scorsese and Kubrick are agnostic when it comes to evil.
Rossellini had a strong moral vision against evil. Jack is probably on to something with Verhoeven, too.
I havent seen a damn thing by Rossellini so I cant say anything about that… But Noe has one of the most honest visions of evil you’ll find.
Also Rohmer and DeSica
Agreed on Rohmer! Also, Pedro Costa, especially in COLOSSAL YOUTH and VANDA’S ROOM.
Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Distant, which I just saw, fits this thread, rather well.
@Jerry
This should be a new thread. Filmmakers that see evil and attack it. A very interesting topic.
Sounds interesting. One of you should start the thread.
I’m the fuckin’ evil, man.
Btw, really surprised about this list
http://www.adherents.com/movies/adh_dir.html
Not very much agnostics or atheists, i refuse to believe some of those are really religious.
Billy The Poet
On Mubi I find majority appreciating such great directors as Tarkovsky, Kubrick, Antonioni, Malick, Marker, and many others, who devote considerable time in their films to depicting the beauty of diegesis, nature and even technology. These directors treat backgrounds, landscapes and phenomenons as characters of their story as well as human characters. They enage in expressing their vision through these elements and thus their films are so magnificent to watch.
In this thread I would like to read some of your recommendations as for filmmakers that in the same vein use image to tell the story, but, instead, prefer to focus more on exploring their human characters. I mean the directors, who express their stories through exposing and exploring human characters, their mannerism, behavior and nature. With all that considered, these directors do not use dialogue exchange as one of the primary tools to reveal their characters. They still emphasize the image, but focus it on humans rather than diegesis. I look for films that express themselves through human’s essence.
Any recommendations?