Essential Directors

[craner]

Haven't heard of this one - in the vein of The Gestapo's Last Orgy?

It's even better!

 

[okzharp]

Julio Medem 1991 - 2001
Vacas -> La Ardilla Roja -> Tierra -> Los Amantes del Ciclo Polar -> Lucia y El Sexo
A good run

 

[DLaurent]

Siodmak and to a slightly lesser extent Lang.

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

Idk why it is with directors and maybe artists, when they get retrospectives put on, places like bfi or galleries think they have to show EVERYTHING. Imagine that with musicians. An audio exhibition of everything 'great musicians' (lets take Bowie for example) have released. It would be awful. good if you are studying them, or just want to track their career or development, but for enjoyment? Doubtful. that said, i do try and watch directors older films when i see one of theirs i like, but usually never get close to doing it all.

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

bunuel has one of the best filmographies of anyone.

 

[kid charlemagne]

Recently my girlfriend and I watched all (ok, not quite all, but most) of Polanski's back catalogue. Most of them I'd seen before of course but some such as Pirates and What? and some of the later ones I'd never seen. But watching them over the course of a couple of weeks was quite a rewarding experience. I'm thinking to do the same with some other directors, maybe ones I'm less familiar with. I'm thinking that out of the canonical ones Cassavetes is maybe the one I'm least familiar with so would like to try and work through all of his... but what else should I go for? Why? Who would benefit from this kind of watching? Who wouldn't?

this is typically how i watch films. have done it with cronenberg, ferrara, friedkin, schrader. now i am on to woody allen, polanski, scorsese, and eastwood.

 

[IdleRich]

this is typically how i watch films. have done it with cronenberg, ferrara, friedkin, schrader. now i am on to woody allen, polanski, scorsese, and eastwood.

I suppose it is quite a logical way to set about watching films.... at least, if you are in a mood for educating yourself, consuming films for that reason rather than simply for enjoyment.

Personally I lack the discipline to do that exclusively so over the years I guess my film watching has been like that of two people; one randomly watching whatever takes my fancy and another attempting to systematically work through directors I consider important. Of course that means when I come to any particular director there is a good chance that two or three will already be crossed off.

A question though, how much of a completist are you? Do you watch their student films, random shorts and such that ar strictly part of their filmography but which are clearly lesser works?

Another logical way of watching films might be to do it by genre or era or suchlike. Japanese films from the 70s or Westerns or something, I dunno. I've never really done that though cos I've not really found a satisfactory way of dividing films. I might occasionally watch two films that are linked thematically or are two treatments of the same events or two adaptations of the same book but that's as far as I've gone in that way.