The 5 directors who made the most impact upon me were: (rompompompompom...)


Akira Kurosawa

Maybe I should just not put any text here except the following: watch "Seven Samurai", then watch it again.
It speaks for itself: an old black & white subtitled movie which managed to keep my father glued to the television for over three hours. And he is the sort of person who generally thinks 90 minute movies are too long!
It's almost the definite lesson in how to make an action film entertaining.

I won't stop with just mentioning this title though because Akira Kurosawa made many other brilliant movies as well, an astounding number of which are masterpieces while the rest are 'mere' classics. He constantly experimented with storytelling techniques and ended up using them in ways we now consider to be 'the norm'.
"Yojimbo", "Sanjuro", "Rashomon", "Kagemusha", "Ran", "The Hidden Fortress", "Throne of Blood"... astonishing works of art and often very entertaining too! And those are just the samurai tales he became famous for. He also made movies like "Ikiru", "I Live in Fear" and "The Bad Sleep Well" which deal with man's place in contemporary society and again these are of astounding high quality.

Many people think he is overrated in the West but that is a hard statement to defend (I will agree that other Japanese directors are UNDER-rated but that's a different story). Just look at the influence he has had on Western film making! Just as Akira Kurosawa often used William Shakespeare's writings to base his scripts on, his own movies have been used as templates for several European and American classics.
"Yojimbo" was remade several times ("A Fist Full of Dollars" and "Last Man Standing" come to mind), "Seven Samurai" was successfully translated into "The Magnificent Seven" and George Lucas famously based much of the structure of his "Star Wars" ("A New Hope" for all you bloody revisionists) on "The Hidden Fortress".

Hard to overrate that, methinks...
Sadly, he is the only one in my list who is no longer with us so his filmography is sealed.


Steven Spielberg

In 1980 I turned into a stark raving mad Star Wars fan, and I blame underexposure to movies up until that point. Anyway, after "The Empire Strikes Back" I was seriously smitten, so the news of another movie related to George Lucas and starring Han Solo was received with much rejoicing! Remember, this was still a time when I only found out about movies AFTER they had become a success in the United States, as we in Holland only received them half a year later. Soon, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" hit me (aged 12) like the rollercoaster it was, and the finale nearly scared me to death!

Two years later we had "E.T." and Steven Spielberg became a generally known name even in OUR country, and a year after that came "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom". By that time we even had a vi-de-o re-cor-der (a Betamax!) so I finally caught "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Jaws". Based on that list, having seen those as an adolescent, can you blame me for thinking Steven Spielberg to be AWESOME? That is a hell of a list of movies!

As George's pre-Star Wars output wasn't quite so prolific, Steven Spielberg was the first director whose style I got to recognize. Enough at least to seriously frown when watching "Poltergeist".

Then came the serious stuff with "The Color Purple" and "Empire of the Sun", together with serious criticism. It became fashionable to dislike Spielbergian cinema but, heh, I've never been one for fashion.

But after "Indiana Jones and the Last crusade" I got less and less enamored by his movies. When the last half hour of a trilogy compares disfavorably with the first ten minutes of it there's something wrong. A damaging amount of naive sentimentality replaced the gory glee of the earlier movies, and the only things which really worked fine in "Crusade" was the addition of River Phoenix and Sean Connery. I mean come on, you have a zeppelin full of nazis in your movie and you don't blow it up??

Spielberg's entertainment films are never total losses though: there is always a moment, a sequence or a performance to enjoy. "Jurassic Park" was an empty shell of a film containing several stunning set pieces and little else. Its sequel threw away any semblance of sanity and is easily the worst movie Spielberg ever made (pet peeve of mine: every single casualty is directly caused by the so-called 'heroes' yet they are never held accountable for it), but even THAT one contains a few scenes worth watching the damn thing.

Same with "A.I.", "Minority Report" and "War of the Worlds". It seems all of Spielberg's recent films are marred by the total freedom he now has, making you wonder if maybe he needs a strong producer watching over him to deliver his best work.

As for the serious stuff: "Schindler's List" turned out to be a very powerful piece of cinema although the few flights of fancy Spielberg allows himself jar in an ugly way with the source material. "Amistad" took too many historical liberties with an interesting story, weakening the film and made it underappreciated (I don't think it is as bad as generally claimed). "Saving Private Ryan" was stellar and classic moviemaking again, but why-oh-why did he put in a sentimental framework taking place in the present?

Before it starts to sound like I've joined the dark side, the one thing that connects all his films (flawed or not) is that they've obviously been touched by a master. There is always a certain quality to them that is not easily defined but definitely uniquely Spielberg, and it's a good thing to have. "Munich" showed he hasn't stopped surprising me and it still pays to be a fan of him.

Fingers crossed for "Indy 4"...


Hayao Miyazaki.

In 2000 I saw two Japanese animated movies in a row at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, at the biggest screen available. The first was the highly anticipated "Princess Mononoke" and it converted me into a Miyazaki fan on the spot. I had heard of the man's work for years, and especially "Princess Mononoke" with its insane domestic box-office. It had already been in release for five years by the time it arrived in Rotterdam, but it was in the news because of the new American version with the dub written by Neil Gaiman. We were surprised to get the original Japanese version with subs, but pleasantly so because we Dutch grow up on subtitles anyway.
But what an artistry on display! No rotoscoping, no motion tracking, just hard work by brilliant animators.
And an epic story. And plausible characterization, even though it's in a fantasy setting. Even the worst of the bad guys have a nobility and purpose which makes it hard to hate them, although you hate the things they do. Seeing this in a cinema was a stunning highlight of any film festival.

I didn't even own a DVD-player at that time so it took ages before I had a chance to watch it again, or discover Miyazaki's other works. A Japanese colleague of mine was kind enough to invite me into his home-cinema (that word has never been done more justice, trust me) and allowed me to catch up on "Nausicaa", "Laputa: Castle in the Sky" and of course "Spirited Away" which took bloody ages to get released in the Netherlands. He also showed me several other works by Ghibli, the studio Miyazaki founded.
Then I got my own player and started investing in a bit of a home-cinema myself. The moment I went region-free I started ordering Ghibli movies from Hong Kong. Yes, I'm a cheapskate, but at least I bought legal versions, OK?

And I made an interesting discovery: Hayao Miyazaki has had a perfect run from the start. From the moment he started to direct feature films, he was brilliant. "Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro" was mentioned by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas as one of the top-10 action films ever made, and it is even rumored to have influenced the editing on parts of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (if true, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were REALLY early in watching it but I digress...). "Nausicaa" and "Laputa" are bliss, but after that Miyazaki did something astounding with "My Neighbor Totoro". Now I'm not going to say that it is a better movie than the previous two, but this gentle family tale is such a big change from the apocalyptic action and science-fiction dramas, it's hard to believe the same man was responsible for all of them. His depiction of children, how they think and how they move, borders on uncanny.

And the list goes on. I can keep talking about how good his films are, and unbelievably there isn't a single dud amongst them.


Mamoru Oshii

In 2000 I saw two Japanese animated movies in a row at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, at the biggest screen available.

Yes, I know I already used this opening but guess what:
the second movie was "Ghost in the Shell" and it totally blew my mind. This time we DID get the English dub and that wasn't good news unfortunately. It didn't matter though, the movie was still strong enough to hook me, starting with that amazing music by Kenji Kawai and the incredible action scenes, coupled with that slow canal boat ride. It's a flawed movie with too much crammed into a short running time (a mere 83 minutes) but it popped a fuse somewhere inside me. I managed to track down the double-VHS tape of it and was stunned by the original Japanese soundtrack. Characters rattle exposition in such a high tempo that three lines of subs were needed to cover the content! Still, its director Mamoru Oshii was still able to put in quiet, meditative scenes and that impressed me a lot.

So this was another director whose work I started to collect feverishly once I got me a DVD-player. Both "Patlabor" movies and the accompanying 7-part television series strengthened my respect for this man and left me no doubt who was responsible for the sucker-punch I had received years earlier in Rotterdam. Seeing his live-action film "Avalon" on the same big screen as where I had seen "Ghost in the Shell" was that year's festival highlight for me.

And then, as if a personal prayer was answered, Oshii made "Innocence", a straight sequel to "Ghost in the Shell". But it wasn't showing on any Dutch screens, not even during the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Grrr...
When I finally saw it I was thoroughly content though: while it wasn't the blinding flash of light the first one had been, it still was pretty damn good!

One by one I tracked down Mamoru Oshii's other films and the ones he helped produce and / or write. He seems to like slow, difficult, philosophical stories. His action sequences are incredible, I know no one who can do them better, but unfortunately they do not seem to interest him very much. It seems like he thinks just that they're there, they need to be perfect and that's it.
Sometimes he completely loses me, sometimes it seems he's only pleasing himself. Sometimes he seems to be teasing the audience with a mere minute of perfect, brilliant action in a movie of which the other content will only be slow, pondering and obtuse.

But sometimes he doesn't just impress me, he spears me!
I have no idea how he does it, but I love it. And if the topic had been "pick one director and discuss 5 of his films" I would have picked Mamoru Oshii.


James Cameron

There was a time during the eighties that I was convinced James Cameron and I were somehow telepathically linked. To give an example: for years I had been dreaming about shooting footage of tap water not running down, but flowing through the air in twists and turns. Seeing this mental image for real in "The Abyss" was a total jawdropper for me. And this was after having seen "Aliens" which I considered to be one of the best movies ever filmed (still do actually), and "The Terminator" which might be the movie I had watched the most! Unsurprisingly my admiration for Cameron only went up with "The Abyss", not down.

Every single movie of his can be criticized but you cannot fault the man on his action scenes, technical acumen and editing prowess. Fuck he's good!
If you can call "True Lies" and "Terminator II: Judgment Day" your least efforts (I'm not counting what he did prior to the first "Terminator") then you have quite a resume...
After having called him my number one director for ten years, he finally got the Academy attention he deserved, although maybe not with the film I wanted.

To some point I can understand the fun in telling everyone how awful "Titanic" is, ten years after its release when we were all visiting cinemas multiple times to watch it. But come on! It's been lambasted to the point where I get dismayed looks whenever I mention the film.
Personally I have a theory why this is: not only does snubbing "Titanic" seem to set you apart from the crowd (although nowadays it doesn't) but people can finally vent their frustration about not being able to use the "sinking ship" metaphor to describe the movie's financial performance. For more than a year before it premiered it seemed VERY unlikely "Titanic" would break even, let alone make a profit. Already infamous for being the most expensive movie ever made, with monthly horror stories emerging from the set people were expecting the death of at least one of the studios involved.

And even I, who saw myself as James Cameron's biggest fan, was doubting him.
I had no affinity with the story and shuddered at my hero's departure from the fields of action and science fiction that he could plow like no other.

All of this changed when the BBC showed parts of the trailer on British television during the summer of 1997. The shots of the ship dipping and sinking not only caused angry letters from British viewers (who were disappointed the BBC had "spoiled the ending" by showing the Titanic would sink) but also totally restored my faith and I couldn't wait to see it in the cinema.

I saw it 4 times, the first showing being a total disaster with an audience so rowdy the police evacuated the back 5 rows of the cinema. Worse, I was disappointed in the movie, because even if the technical aspects stunned me I felt nothing for both leads in the flashback story.
The second time was a 70 mm print in an IMAX theater, and this time the crowd was mostly teenage girls. The emotions flowed over the people like a tangible wave and nearly everyone was crying or sniveling at the end! As I could no longer be disappointed (that happens just once) I could marvel at the visuals and sounds in the IMAX, and having a respectful audience which seemed to be LIVING the movie made a night and day difference.
Needless to say, the last two times were also at the IMAX, years later, during a retrospective of 70 mm movies.

So don't try to diss "Titanic" in my presence. I'm fully aware of its faults, but am baffled by the willingness of people to overlook its merits.

Back to James: pleased though I was with all this recognition of my hero, dismay has followed with every consecutive year of non-filmmaking. It's nice he does what he likes, television and documentaries and such, but... I will be soooo happy once he returns to the cinema. Rumors that all of his movies will be in IMAX-3D make me very happy (saw "Beowulf" in 3D and was VERY impressed with that technology)!

Bring on... "Avatar"!
Bring on... "Battle Angel Aelita"!