What the Film » Directors

The Best UK Film Directors in the 1960’s

what the film — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:10:08 +0000

The 60s in films is considered as one of the best decades in film because of the revolutionary ideas that were presented for the first time. Leading the movement to impressive films in the 60s are three film directors from UK: David Lean, John Schlesinger and Guy Hamilton. Each of the film directors has made something unique that made lasting impression on the film industry.

Sir David Lean CBE – Powerful Blockbuster Films

Sir David Lean will always be known for his iconic films: the Bridge over River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. These films were made from the late 50s to the 60s. His biggest influence in films is his ability to handle big budget films with ease while presenting them as a work of art rather than something to amaze the audience.

John Richard Schlesinger – Pushing the Envelope in Film Making

John Schlesinger’s films during the 60s are something that every film maker should take a closer look. Although his films do not offer the unique complexity of film making, he is known for tackling different types of subjects with ease. His first film during the 60s is “Darling” which is actually a movie that chronicles the swinging lifestyle in London. His other films “Far from the Maddening Crowd” and “Midnight Cowboy” which garnered international attention.

Guy Hamilton – James Bond Director and More

Guy Hamilton’s work on James Bond’s “Goldfinger” has practically cemented his identity as a magnificent film director. Complementing his films during the 60s is: “The Best of Enemies”, “Man in the Middle”, “The Party’s Over”, “Funeral in Berlin” and “Battle of Britain”.

The Works and Impact of Steven Spielberg on Film

what the film — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 09:47:49 +0000

Steven Spielberg has been one of the world’s most iconic film directors for more than four decades. His influence is more than just live action films since he is also one of the founders of Dreamworks which rivals Pixar in terms of animations. His experience as a director and film producer has allowed him to easily influence a movie and inspire more film makers.

Early Beginnings

His love of film making inspired him to start creating movies before he was ten years old. His first films were with friends and were based on war stories told by his father. In college Spielberg studied film making in California State University but eventually became an intern for Universal Studios. He eventually got the attention of the studio after making the short film Amblin in 1968. Sidney Sheinberg who was the VP for Production in Universal signed-up Spielberg after she saw the short film.

Success and Popularity

Spielberg initially worked with various TV projects before going into films. While he did make some impression in his early projects, he never really got the global appeal. His rise to fame only came with the film “Jaws” which immediately catapulted him to movie greatness. After Jaws, he started to work on some popular projects such as Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. Aside from his ability to work with sci-fi themes, his projects also pushed him to work artistically with kids and some of them became popular actors and actresses as adults.

Steven Spielberg to do Ground Zero Documentary

what film — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 09:20:58 +0000

After all the documentaries that have been released in the past nine years showing those indelible footages of the twin towers’ destruction and the moments of agony the world lived on that 9/11, Steven Spielberg is opening a new chapter to witness and record the new World Trade Centre that is to rise again from the ashes of Ground Zero. The production of a series of documentary in six parts to be entitled “Rebuilding Ground Zero” is planned to be completed and released in 2011.

The structure that will be build in the former WTC site will be called the Freedom Tower, a 540 metre tower to be the tallest building in the US, which development has begun in 2006 and is due to be completed in 2013. Next to the cubicle tower will also be the Reflecting Absence memorial and museum to commemorate victims of the terrorist attacks.

The importance of commemoration and honourship of the lost lives in 9/11 is Spielberg’s main motivation for this work and, for this reason, has been warmly welcomed by New York’s mayor Michael Bloomberg. The documentary will make use of advanced technological means including computer modelling techniques, 3-D and time-lapses cameras through which Spielberg will recreate, as only he is capable of, the events that made history from that day.

Oldboy possibly to get a remake from Spielberg

what the film — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:55:44 +0000

Steven Spielberg is always associated with multi-million budget films that aim to wow the audience right from the start. Even if he wants to be emotional, he always do it with a bang. It’s hard to remember the last time he got himself drowned at work for a small budget film.

Will Smith on the other hand also has the same caliber when it comes to making blockbuster films. As the Independence Day guy, his consecutive success in movies every Independence Day has made him one of the most recognized actors today.

But both of them are trying or is looking out to do something really out of their reputation. Steven Spielberg is reportedly considering to remake a relatively popular movie entitled Oldboy. To add the oddity to the report, he is now considering Will Smith to be part of the project wherein Will Smith could most likely get the lead character.

Oldboy is a relatively popular Korean movie that features a character named Dae-Su. This type of movie weaves together emotions and violence as this 2003 movie shows the man out for revenge. The reason? He was not able to get out of a hotel room for 15 years. The original movie of Chan-Wook Park is very violent but it gives the audience the perspective of what goes on inside the mind of the main character.

This movie would prove to be a great challenge for Steven Spielberg in case he takes this project. Will Smith will also have the time of his life trying to be the psychopath out for revenge.

Stanley Kubrick season on More 4

what the film — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:28:53 +0000

It’s strange how intertwined music and sound are with film. I was in my room when I heard the various pieces used in the advertisement for More 4′s Kubrick season, from films such as Lolita, Eyes Wide Shut and The Shining, and rushed in each time to catch the end of trailer. The good news is that you can get More 4 on Freeview and we have a box. The bad news is that my flatmate came home drunk one night and couldn’t get the remote to work so he started banging it on his leg until it broke into several small pieces.

So when I realised that we wouldn’t be watching the season all together every night this past week, I decided to spend a couple of nights at the office, where we do have Freeview. At least I was at work on time. The season prepared by Channel 4 was an excellent collection of films and documentaries by and about one of the great masters of modern cinema.

Watching Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes I gained new insight into the personality and practices of this magnificent filmmaker. The organisational skills and attention to detail that makes his films not just works of art, but beautifully crafted pieces of work. Viewers forget or perhaps do not know what it takes to organise and execute scenes with massive numbers of extras (Paths of Glory, Spartacus, etc.) or lighting and decorating a set so well that each time the camera cuts to a new shot or follows a character it is like walking through an art gallery (Barry Lyndon, The Shining) or how brilliantly written and intensely researched a script needs to be to tackle serious issues (A Clockwork Orange, Dr. Strangelove) and retain the audience’s attention.

Granted, not everyone is a Kubrick fan. I can’t for the life of me see why, but film, like most things in life, is a question of taste. You’re not going to pop Barry Lyndon into the DVD player with your mates after a long day at work so you can relax. Unless you want to fall asleep. To get back to the documentary I was watching, the researcher making the doc went through 900 boxes in which Kubrick had stored research on possible films, thousands of photographs of locations, even fan letters, all categorised by location. And behind every item in the box was a little more insight into how this man’s mind worked. Well, it’s interesting to a Kubrick fan at least.

I’ve been looking into buying the Kubrick collection online, however it is indicative of how respected he is as a director, that a complete collection of his films costs anywhere between $160 and $60. I guess I’ll have to wait a bit longer. There are other special edition collections which include great documentaries and features. The Stanley Kubrick Archives will soon be available again in hard cover, which I think I will invest in.

Worry not if you missed the More 4 season, it’s still going on and you can catch The Killing (one of his earlier films) on Wednesday 23 and The Shining on Friday 25. I haven’t seen The Killing so I will be staying in this Friday. I wonder, am I allowed to eat pizza and drink beer while I watch Kubrick, or is it sacrilege?

Shane Meadows, Mr. Selfdestruct

what the film — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:50:09 +0000

My mother’s last birthday present to me was a box set. What can I say, the woman knows me well. Probably because I had been going on and on about Shane Meadows and This is England. So now I own a box set of his films called This is Shane Meadows and it includes all of his feature films as well as some wonderful bonus material.

Although Mr. Meadows’ films are all different stories, with nothing to connect them directly, there is an underlying theme to all of them, one that he explores over and over again, and has done incredibly well in This is England. It is the them of the self destructive male.

All of his films feature a male protagonist who is trying very hard to control himself. They try to teach and be in charge of their own behaviour and emotions. And yet in each one they lose that control with terrible results. The difference from other violent male leads is that Meadows accepts that these characters are flawed, they are not to be role models, even though in the context of the film they try to be. In the end, they cannot take their own advice and destroy themselves and the things they love around them.

Meadows’ two best points are his excellent directing of actors (and a bloody good casting director) and the emotional depth and development of his characters. He creates a British cinema that is very different to anything else coming out of the UK. It reminds me of 1970s films from the US when suddenly the studios let a pack of kids run wild, which resulted in Taxi Driver and Easy Rider, but his films are also much more European. In the simplicity of his film making there is intellect and care for his characters that ultimately affects and reaches the audience.

Overall this is an excellent box set, although the commentaries weren’t great. It is a well rounded way to get introduced to one of the best film directors working in the UK at the moment. The box set has been out for a while, so prices have dropped at most DVD websites and shops. Enjoy!

Tim Burton: Alice in Wonderland, but where are you?

what the film — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:47:18 +0000

A few months ago I came across a Sweeney Todd poster in a film magazine, and being a huge Tim Burton and Johnny Depp fan it went straight on the wall. Even though I had been thoroughly disappointed by pretty much everything he had done since Big Fish, I assumed that Tim+Johnny+Helena+Blood+Musical would most definitely equal success. So after dragging 5 of my friends to the cinema to watch Sweeney Todd I went straight home and literally tore the poster off the wall.

What on earth has happened to the man that filled my childhood and adolescence with such wonderful films? I had no understanding of directors and actors when I was young, I just enjoyed films that had a certain something. And Burton’s first films all had that certain something; an air of melancholy and hopefulness, a playful desperation in all of his characters. Beetlejuice was the funniest macabre film I had ever seen, which brought Burton’s aesthetics clearly to the fore. Edward Scissorhands explored the outsider, the one who is different in a very literal way, while criticising suburban infatuation with anything that might break the boredom.

His two Batman films were brilliantly camp and still somehow achieved a sexyness (despite the fact that Burton seemed to develop the villains a lot more than the hero, and the whole thing remained very cartoony). Ed Wood and Mars Attacks explored his fixation with science fiction and were wonderful comedies, one completely absurd and violent and the other an incredibly sweet descent into failure. Sleepy Hollow had some genuinely scary moments but you can see the first indications that something is going wrong.

And after that… with the exception of Big Fish, which is a wonderful touching fairytale, the list is horrendous. Planet of the Apes is a distant memory for me, forced into a box, latched, put in a wardrobe and pushed over a cliff into the sea of my subconscious. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory feels like an awkward attempt to find something he lost. All the elements were there but the film was cringe worthy at times and no amount of Johnny Depp’s grimacing was going to help it. Not to mention that it had to compete with the 1970s version which scared the life out of me as a child and had real Umpa Lumpas. Corpse Bride had absolutely no soul whatsoever. Again it looked like he was following the recipe he used for what is one of the best animated films of all times with an incredible soundtrack, Nightmare Before Christmas, and again it all went horribly wrong.

Which brings us back neatly to Sweeney Todd. What the hell was that all about? Were large amounts of blood, gore, posturing and bad singing supposed to conceal the fact that it was terrible? Watching that film in the cinema, it was one of the few times that I did not mind my mates talking between themselves. At some point, most of the audience had sunk into their seats and were sniggering with the person next to them, and it wasn’t because something funny happened.They were bored. I have never been as excited to see Sacha Baron Cohen.

It makes me so sad, that a director whose films I grew up on, could take such a massively wrong turn. A man who has had such a massive impact on popular culture and subculture, seems to have lost it. Perhaps if I was younger I would find his more recent work intriguing or at least entertaining, but then why is it that I still love his older films?

Regardless, lets focus on the future. His next film is an animation/live action Alice in Wonderland and rumours abound about the cast, but there is no point going into it seeing as it is being released in 2010. He is also remaking his own Frankenweenie as a feature length stop motion animation. He is also participating in the production Ripley’s Believe It Or Not and 9. Alice In Wonderland sounds like an ideal project, and he cannot really go wrong with a remake of his own work.

Or can he? I have my own theory that he is too happy to make films since he had kids, but that is far too cynical for me to really believe it. I just want him to put some soul back into his films. I want to go into the cinema and feel like a child for an hour and a bit. Oh please, please, please let me get what I want Tim.