Speaking of Trivialization and Absurdity . . . - "Who Is the Greatest Director of ...

[Tony]

I like your list Jaimie; but what about the king of American cinema, who everybody has seemed to forget:

D.W. Griffiths !!!!

Plus, if we're going international:

Bergman!!! (chess anyone?)

Obviously, this web-site list under discussion is just ridiculous; the only one I follow is the every ten years one,Sights and Sounds, which has had Welles on top as director and Kane as film since 1962, and is voted on by industry people:)

PS: Jaimie: I think i'd like a theme park with rides based on Welles picures: these would be great rides: Shanghai (fun house), Arkadin (he keeps chasing you and telling you old european homilies) Touch of Evil ( battle it out with the Hankster) The Trial (you never know what's happening in this one) and TOSOTW (though this one would have to be rated adults only- I'm thinking of that car ride with Oja)

[etimh]

Yeah Jaime, you know what I'm talking about. Archer films.

One last comment on the list from me--what about Fellini? I mean, Leone is cool, but better than Fellini?

So O&J: I agree wholeheartedly with your final remarks.

Tony: that bit on the amusement park is very good--I am so on that TOSOTW ride!

Tim

[jaime marzol]

how could i forget about felini. he's in my top 10 list.

have you seen the voyager 8 1/2? it's fabulous, packed with supplement. their NIGHTS OF CABIRIA looks great, and has good supplement. and their LA DOCE VITA looks also looks fabulous. i'm now awaiting the DOLCE VITA supplement disc.

powell is so visual. he does some radical framing, and what he did with color film is also pretty radical. i have several documentaries on the archers. one that aired on the SOUTH BANK SHOW on bravo is excellent. it's the one that has newspapers and holes cut in the paper and a bunch of lips are in those holes badmouthing PEEPING TOM. EVER SEE IT?

[jaime marzol]

certainly bergman and griffith.

can you imagine a person that voted for speilberg as best director, making him sit through bergman and griffith films? that would be funny. he would hate you. make him watch the long version of birth of a nation, follow it up with intollarence, then wild strawberrys.

the hank quinlan ride would be the one for me. a romp through los robles with hank, boozing it up, framing innocent minorities.

has any one noticed that val de vargas is in TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA, and a street they are surveiling is Los Robles blvd? freidkin is a fan.

[dmolson]

For being such a 'youth-oriented' list, I was impressed to see 9 corpses on it. Perhaps we underestimate the general movie-loving public afterall...
Certainly a list made up in 1965 or '85 would have left some very considerable talents off it, but that the majority of directors on this list remain active suggests its a very public poll. We can scoff at the Spielbergs and Jacksons and Camerons all we want, but people are going to see their films in huge lines -- and occasionally, one or two are worth revisiting again and again (Jaws and Aliens come to mind).
Many of these directors have gone on record handing credit where its due to their predecessors -- my personal favourite is Jackson's tip of the hat to Welles when he included him in his delicious evil fable (tho based on a real event) Heavenly Creatures... as the hollywood movie star who was the day-dream fatuation of a chubby little mother-killer. It's an awfully good film, to boot.

[Orson&Jazz]

I have seen Heavenly Creatures, and I do believe the two little chubby mother-killers called Orson "The most hideous man alive!!"


I don't know if that can be defined as Jackson's tip of the hat to Welles or not.

[Roger Ryan]

I have seen Heavenly Creatures, and I do believe the two little chubby mother-killers called Orson "The most hideous man alive!!"


I don't know if that can be defined as Jackson's tip of the hat to Welles or not.

Yes, but the girls in "Heavenly Creatures" use this as a compliment! Welles, or rather his performance as Harry Lime, completely fascinates them and they treat Welles like a pin-up idol. I think Welles would have been amused to be referenced in this film. Incidentally, Jackson's faux-documentary "Forgotten Silver" owes a bit to Welles' cinematic fakery, especially the "Kane" newsreel.

[Orson&Jazz]

Oh.

I kind of took it as true hatred in the scene when they compare Hollywood "hunks", then say that Orson was the most hideous man alive and tear up his photo. I kind of took it as literal hatred. I guess I failed to see as it really as a form of adoration.

I only saw the film once, and that scene was the only one I really remember. I guess it was the line "most hideous man alive" that kind of stuck.

[Roger Ryan]

The girls in "Heavenly Creatures" (based on a true story, by the way) are attracted to Welles because he represents (through his portrayal of Harry Lime) something darker and more dynamic than the typical Hollywood pin-ups who lack character in their eyes. They find him sexual in a way that frightens them. During the course of the film, they create a fantasy playworld for themselves using an Orson doll (!) who romances a female doll which, one persumes, represents the girls. In an inventive fantasy sequence, Jackson even brings the Orson doll to life, lifesize and dancing in what looks like a Bavarian courtyard! Ultimately, Jackson uses the girls' obsession with Welles as a symptom of their combined psychosis, which will result in them murdering the one girl's mother, but there is the obvious subtext as well (which the girls recognize): Welles represents something wilder, more interesting than what mainstream Hollywood normally offers. Taken this way, it's a very thoughtful nod from Mr. Jackson.

[R Kadin]

I believe it was noted in an earlier thread that Jackson did not instigate the Welles connection. It emerged from the real events where the accused girls had reportedly seen and been affected by Welles in a film - not as Harry Lime, by the way (that adjustment was either Jackson's doing or it came via the scriptwriter, Fran Walsh) but as the villain in another British film, "Trent's Last Case", where he had specifically made himself up to appear menacing and decidedly un-Welles.

The film's decision to substitute a wholly unaltered Welles (as we know, his Harry Lime is one of those rarest of instances where he wore none of his customary facial prosthetics) for an almost unrecognizable alternative makes its homage to him meaningful to an even wider audience while, as Roger has deftly indicated, allowing all those other wry psychological, artistic and cultural connections to free-associate onscreen for a while.

It's unlikely that such rich implications would have been lost on a filmmaker of Jackson's calibre - especially when he had to reach half-way 'round the world (from New Zealand to Canada) to find an actor whose resemblance to Our Man was good enough to pass muster.

More a "love letter" than a mere tip of the hat, IMHO.

[Orson&Jazz]

I think I need to review the movie again!

The movie you're describing was not the same movie I saw. I never noticed all the references to Welles at all except the photo tearing scene. You have definitely have made me more aware now. I will definitely take another crack at the film to look for these nods to Welles.

IMOH, Jackson moved up a few points on my list for this "love letter" to Welles.