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Not too long ago I was asked the question "Who's your favorite director?" This w
as in response to my admission to an interest in filmmaking which was, in itself, a response to another question, "So, what's new with you?"
To be honest, I didn't know how to reply to that. My favorite director? Well, of course, all filmmakers have favorite directors .. or do they? I couldn't really come up with one, and when I answered that I didn't really have a favorite, he seemed surprised and very incredulous. The more I tried to explain, the more I felt unsure of myself. There are many directors whose work I admire, but I can't say that any one is a favorite over another. I can't say with certainty that I've seen all the films of those directors either, and there are some films I love without being more than vaguely aware of who the directors are.
I'm drawn to the films of M. Night Shamalyan, Tim Burton, Stephen Speilberg, Ang Lee, Yimou Zhang, to name a few. I like some of the films directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Hayao Miyazaki, Ridley Scott, and Blake Edwards, too. I like the limited number of movies I've seen from Guillermo del Toro, Peter Jackson, Stanley Kubrick, George Cukor, Robert Wise, but a favorite director? I couldn't say.
Why am I drawn to one movie or the other? Sometimes it's the story, sometimes the writing or the acting or the cinematography. Sometimes it's each piece fitting so nicely together as a whole, and sometimes it's the director who makes it all shine. And so I think, for me, it's the storytelling that brings me back , the particular way of telling the story, the point of view. It can be the story itself or the acting or the directing or the characters or all of the above.
When I was a child, the question would've been answered with hesitation .. George Lucas. After my disappointment with the prequels (and I liked the prequels but realized Lucas no longer held the esteem he once did with me), I've come to the conclusion that the story succeeded despite his best efforts .. although his direction made the story into what it was, it was the story itself that I came to love, the characters in that story that drew me in .. there was something lacking in the way the story was told in the prequels & that's what I'd found so disappointing. Was it the fault of the director, the screenplay, or something else? Was it simply a particular preference of mine?
So what do you think? What draws you to a particular film or a particular genre? Do you have a favorite director, or are you like me, perplexed at how to adequately answer that deceptively simple question?
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