John at Hitchcock's World has been a very busy blogger, lately. Just the other day, I participated in his relay for The Ten Biggest Stars of Classical Hollywood and he's got blogathons going, left and right. I've also been handed the baton to another relay John has started. This one for The Ten Most Influential Directors of All Time. The amazing Alex at And So it Begins... did the honors.
The rules are simple, but in case you don't know them, they go like this: From a pre-existing list, remove one person and replace them with another, explaining why on both counts. Then pass the list on to another blogger.
Ready on the Set...
Action!
Making the Cut
Francis Ford Coppola
D.W. Griffith
Howard Hawks
Alfred Hitchcock
Stanley Kubrick
Sergio Leone
Georges Méliès
Steven Spielberg
Martin Scorcese
Edited Out:
David Lynch
When I think of David Lynch, I think odd, quirky, unique, and maybe misunderstood. He is a man of vision with an unmistakable style. More of his cinematic flourishes seem purely of his own imagination than probably any other director I can think of. He doesn't merely make films, he experiments with the medium. However, I don't think of him as hugely influential. When it's all said and done, he will leave us a body of work that deserves to be studied for the rest of time. I just don't think there are a line of would be auteurs trying to follow in his footsteps.
Spliced In:
Quentin Tarantino
Whether or not Tarantino is one of the greatest directors of all time is open to debate. What is not debatable is the fact that he is highly influential. He's so much so that cinematic history can be split into two sections: Before and After Pulp Fiction. Until that movie came out, QT had been gaining recognition as a force to be reckoned with, a hot new commodity. After PF hit the screen, lots and lots of movies came out aping his style. He himself transparently ripped off paid homage to movies he loved as a youth and now directors everywhere do the same. The ultra-violent crime comedy is a genre he practically invented. Characters in every genre were suddenly more self-aware and more easily identifiable as part of the same universe as us viewers. They made references to all the pop culture things we know and love. They spoke with the same kind of snark and sarcasm as many of us, with at least as many four-letter words. That's as much a testament to his ability as a writer as it is to what he does from the director's chair, but it's all part of the package. A number of directors owe their entire careers. More importantly, he single-handedly changed the cinematic landscape.
With that, I'm passing the baton to m. brown at Two Dollar Cinema.
The Relay So Far...
John from Hitchcock's World
Katy from Girl Meets Cinema
Alex from And So it Begins...
Wendell from Dell on Movies