Film director
Parent categories: film
Related: cult directors - director's cut
A canon: Woody Allen - Pedro Almodóvar - Catherine Breillat - Luis Buñuel - Roger Corman - David Cronenberg - Michael Haneke - Juzo Itami - Patrice Leconte - Spike Lee - David Lynch - Radley Metzger - François Ozon - Roman Polanski - Nicolas Roeg - Jacques Tati - Alex van Warmerdam - Michael Winterbottom
Roger Corman, maverick film director
List of directors
[Apr 2005]A - Woody Allen - Pedro Almodóvar - Robert Altman - Michelangelo Antonioni - P.T. Anderson - Kenneth Anger - Fernando Arrabal - B - Kroger Babb - Paul Bartel - Mario Bava - José Bénazéraf - Ingmar Bergman - Bernardo Bertolucci - Bertrand Blier - Peter Bogdanovich - Walerian Borowczyk - Stan Brakhage - Tinto Brass - Catherine Breillat - Robert Bresson - Luis Buñuel - Tim Burton - C - James Cameron - Jane Campion - John Carpenter - Donald Cammell - Claude Chabrol - Larry Clark - Jean Cocteau - Coen brothers - Larry Cohen - Tony Conrad - Alex Cox - Francis Coppola - Roger Corman - David Cronenberg - D - Joe Dante - Jonathan Demme - Cecil B. DeMille - Maya Deren - Carl Dreyer - E - Clint Eastwood - Sergei Eisenstein - Thomas Edison - Atom Egoyan - Jean Epstein - F - Oskar Fischinger - Louis Feuillade - Georges Franju - Abel Gance - Rainer Werner Fassbinder - Federico Fellini - Abel Ferrara - Marco Ferreri - Jess Franco - Riccardo Freda - G - Vincent Gallo - Terry Gilliam - Peter Greenaway - Alain-Robbe Grillet - H - Michael Haneke - Todd Haynes - Werner Herzog - I - Alfred Hitchcock - Teruo Ishii - Juzo Itami - J - Gualtiero Jacopetti - Derek Jarman - Just Jaeckin - Alexandro Jodorowsky - Spike Jonze - K - Krzysztof Kieslowski - Stanley Kubrick - Akira Kurosawa - L - Fritz Lang - René Laloux - José Ramón Larraz - Patrice Leconte - Spike Lee - Sergio Leone - Michel Lemoine - David Lynch - M - Dusan Makavejev - Louis Malle - Chris Marker - Antonio Margheriti Yasuzo Masumura - Georges Méliès - E. Elias Merhige - Radley Metzger - Russ Meyer - Takashi Miike - F.W. Murnau - Edward Muybridge - N - Gaspar Noé - Christopher Nolan - O - Nagisa Oshima - François Ozon - P - Pier Paolo Pasolini - Max Pécas - Roman Polanski - Otto Preminger - Q - Brothers Quay - R - Jean Renoir - Alain Resnais - Alex de Renzy - Leni Riefenstahl - Jacques Rivette - Nicolas Roeg - Jean Rollin - George Romero - Ken Russell - S - Salvatore Samperi - Joe Sarno - John Sayles - Barbet Schroeder - Vilgot Sjöman - Jack Smith - Martin Scorcese - Josef von Sternberg - Erich von Stroheim - Jan Svankmajer - T - Jacques Tati - Quentin Tarantino - Lars von Trier - François Truffaut - Roger Vadim - V - Gus Van Sant - Dziga Vertov - Bo Arne Vibenius - Luchino Visconti - W - Koji Wakamatsu - Peter Walker - Alex van Warmerdam - Wayne Wang - John Waters - Orson Welles - Wim Wenders - Robert Wiene - Michael Winterbottom - Doris Wishman - Ed Wood, Jr.
Definition
A film director directs the artistic and dramatic aspects of a film. The role typically includes:
- Defining the overall artistic vision of the film.
- Controlling the content and flow of the film's plot.
- Directing the performances of actors, both mechanically by putting them in certain positions (i.e. blocking), and dramatically by eliciting the required range of emotions.
- Organizing and selecting the locations in which the film will be shot.
- Managing technical details such as the positioning of cameras, the use of lighting, and the timing and content of the film's soundtrack.
- Any other activity that defines or realizes the artistic vision the director has for the film.
In practice the director will delegate many of these responsibilities to other members of his film crew. For example, the director may describe the mood she or he wants from a scene, then leave it to other members of the film crew to find a suitable location, or to set up the appropriate lighting.
The degree of control that a director exerts over a film varies greatly. Many directors are essentially subordinate to the studio. This was especially true during the "Golden Era" of Hollywood from the 1930s through the 1950s, when studios had stables of directors, actors and writers under contract.
Other directors bring a particular artistic vision to the pictures they make (see auteur theory). Their methods range from some who like to outline a general plot line and let the actors improvise dialogue (such as Robert Altman and Christopher Guest), to those who control every aspect, and demand that the actors and crew follow instructions precisely (such as Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick). Some directors also write their own scripts (such as Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino), while others collaborate on screenplays with long-standing writing partners (such as Billy Wilder and his writing partner I.A.L. Diamond.) Finally, certain directors star, often in leading roles, in their films, from Orson Welles to Woody Allen to Mel Brooks.
Directors often work closely with film producers, who are usually responsible for the non-artistic elements of the film, such as financing, contract negotiation and marketing. Directors will often take on some of the responsibilities of the producer for their films (e.g. Steven Spielberg), or work so closely with the producer that the distinction in their roles becomes blurred (as is the case with Joel and Ethan Coen). The early silent film director Alice Guy Blaché not only produced her own pictures but actually created her own highly successful studio. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_director [Oct 2004]
History of film in 100 directors (1899 - 2004) [...]
From Edison to P.T. Anderson, click the next buttons to see the presentation.Auteur theory [...]
Auteur is French for author. Since the 1950s, when auteur theory in cinema was first brought forward, it has acquired the meaning (in cinema) of directors whose imprint on a movie is strongly felt. --jahsonic, Jan 2004Female filmmakers and the myth of romantic love
[...] Breillat's work belongs to a genre of films, directed by women, in which female protagonists peel back the seductive myths of romantic love in an attempt to discover the meaning of sexuality for themselves -- no matter how delightful or degrading their experiences. These films include: Carine Adler's Under The Skin, Davida Allen's Feeling Sexy, Bette Gordon's Variety, Jackie Burrough's A Winter Tan, Monika Treut's The Virgin Machine.--Barbara Creed