Toughest Auteur of all time?

no rounds … no gloves … no rules (maybe no biting? or pulling of hair?)

who will it be?

Hou Hsiao-hsien (Triple H)

1) Lee, Bruce. directed “Return of the Dragon”

2) Chan, Jackie. directed “Project A” and others

^ NO ONE is tougher than Jackie (not even Bruce)

He is tougher…

Yeah, there is no question Werner Herzog is the toughest director of all-time. The man walked from Munich to Paris just to “save” a friend from dying (and it fucking worked!). I have trouble walking to get the mail.

On top of all that Herzog is bat-shit insane. If there are no rules then I would go up against anyone else other than Herzog, personally and I think most auteurs would feel the same way.

Injuries -

HEAD:
Other than the brain hemorrhage I suffered on Armour of God, I’ve hit my head and injured it many times. I was actually knocked completely unconscious while working as a stuntman on Hand of Death.

EARS:
The Armour of God fall also left me hard-of-hearing in one ear.

EYE:
On Drunken Master, my brow ridge was injured, and I nearly lost an eye.

NOSE:
You’d think that someone Up There had it in for me and my nose! It’s bad enough that it’s so big to begin with, but I’ve actually broken it at least three times—on The Young Master, Project A, and, most recently, Mr. Nice Guy.

CHEEK:
While making Supercop, I dislocated a cheekbone. I didn’t even know you could do that.

TEETH:
Hwang Jang Lee is a tremendous kicker … as I found out when he kicked out one of my teeth (accidentally) while we were making Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow.

CHIN:
I injured my chin on Dragon Lord. It was painful even talking for a while. Which made it hard to direct, not to mention act.

THROAT:
During The Young Master, I was almost suffocated when I injured my throat.

NECK:
I’ve hurt my neck a lot, but my worst neck injuries happened during the clock-tower fall in Project A, and after I messed up a flip during Mr. Nice Guy.

SHOULDER:
I dislocated my shoulder while making City Hunter.

HAND:
During The Protector, I hurt my hand and finger bones-adding injury to insult.

ARM:
While I was shooting a fight scene in Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, my arm was accidentally slashed by a sword that should have had a blunted edge. Blood went everywhere, and I fell down screaming … and the camera kept rolling! That’s real pain you see in the movie!

CHEST:
On Armour of God II: Operation Condor, I dislocated my sternum after falling from a hanging chain. That’s another bone I didn’t know you could dislocate, but somehow I managed to do it.

BACK:
I’ve had a lot of back injuries doing my movies, but the pole-slide scene in Police Story almost paralyzed me when I nearly broke the seventh and eighth vertebrae in my spine.

PELVIS:
Also during the pole-slide stunt, I dislocated my pelvis. I guess you’re wondering just how many weird bones a person can dislocate. Sometimes it seems like I’ve dislocated them all.

LEGS:
I crushed my legs while shooting Crime Story, after getting caught between two cars.

KNEE:
I’ve hurt my knees so often that I wonder whether there’s even any cartilege left in them. (If you think I run a little funny, that’s part of the reason why.) It makes any stunt in which I have to jump harder, but I do my best anyway. Would you expect anything less? One of my worst injuries occurred during City Hunter, while I was shooting a skateboard chase.

FOOT:
I broke my ankle while jumping onto a hovercraft in Rumble in the Bronx. After the bone was set and a cast was put on, I was told to stay off my feet until it healed. But I had a movie to finish! I went back to the set and put a sock on my broken foot, painted to look like a sneaker.

Budd Boetticher. He was a fucking gringo bullfighter in Mexico before he started making movies. He would wipe an arena clean with Herzog’s ass.

Didn’t Buster Keaton actually break his neck while making Sherlock Jr.? I believe it was during Sherlock Jr.. And on top of that he didn’t even go to a doctor, for a broken fucking neck! He didn’t even find out until over a decade later.

If we’re just talking about physical toughness nothing really matches that story… plus Buster Keaton physically risked his life in every film. It takes a lot more balls to have a house fall on top of you then it does to bullfight or get kicked in the face.

If! However, we’re talking about fighting. Herzog is insane and there are no rules. Smart money always goes to insanity over physical toughness when there aren’t any rules.

Philippe Garrel. Cause surviving a heroin addiction, nico’s suicide, and shock therapy bequeaths all other measly physical struggles.

Herzog dragged a boat over a mountain. End of thread.

Jackie Chan did the exact same stunt in one of his films, Afro Pop ;)

Jackie is no doubt the most physically fit/tough director and he risked his life multiple times in every film…
but yes Buster Keaton was up there as well.

I wouldn’t want to fight Sam Fuller

I’ve only seen one of his films but I would like to submit Wang Bing.

Perhaps the most fearless and most patient director I’ve yet encountered.

Give Keaton even more credit, his lithe body and direct movements means he’d have full control of the arena while everyone else was just hulking around.

I wanted to make a joke about Uwe Boll boxing his critics but that was just sad…

—PolarisDiB

Herzog is nestled snuggly in LA. Why did he walk from Munich to Paris? Couldn’t he get a lift?

Not forgetting the demon, the three clawed fiend.

But yes, Keaton carried on with a broken neck, he was incredible without making a big thing of it, so he wins

Yes, but, in LA, Herzog appeared out of nowhere and saved Joaquin Phoenix from a burning car, then disappeared mysteriously into the night. When asked why he left the scene of the accident, Herzog said, “I did what I had to do, but I had a movie to go work on.”

—PolarisDiB

I wouldn’t mess with this:

Not to mention being shot in LA. Luckily it wasn’t a ‘significant bullet’ that was lodged in his belly while he carried on his interview…

Tarkovsky was pretty tough, despite being a little frail fella.
He didn’t crack up when the lab told him ‘Oops, Stalker? Yeah, we destroyed that one, sorry.’ He just got the crew together and made it again.

Also, you don’t want to mess with Koji Wakamatsu. He may not be so tough himself but his Red Army pals will break your fingers if you copy his movies, apparently.

Well, the story behind the re-shoot of “Stalker” was a bit more complicated since Tarkovsky actually blamed Rerberg for being partly responsible since he had not tested the quality of the film stock, and the whole issue distressed Tarkovsky that much he finally called Rerberg and told him he wouldn’t ever want to see him again. Tarkovsky replaced him with another cinematographer and did everything he could to erase Rerberg’s name from the credits even though he included intact footage that Rerberg had shot as well as many of his shot suggestions. I’d therefore say the whole issue gives more evidence of Tarkovsky’s debility than his toughness.

I heard that Sam Peckinpah would routinely fire gunshots at actors. Does that make him tough, or semi-psychotic?

Tough.

After all, he had the guts to direct this-

I wish I could think of more to add to this list but I really do agree with the suggestions of Jackie Chan, Buster Keaton and Werner Herzog…

The only other person I can think of right now is Yukio Mishima for sculpting himself from a frail sickly body to an angelic muscular one, creating his own private army and living (and dying in) his work to the extreme.