11 directors who changed my perception of movies from 2004 to around 2012ish
1. Werner Herzog -- it was his Nosferatu that kick-started my love affair with film as an art form, his prime decade was the 70s, where there was a mystical quality. I have a soft spot for the 2 starring Bruno in The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser and Stroszek (I always spell that wrong). Aguirre the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo are great, his filming technique made it like a herculean effort to get it done, most famously taking a whole big ship up a mountain which is superbly documented by Les Blank in Burden of Dreams. Werner first off was brought to my attention in Julien Donkey boy by Harmony Korine, he plays a really weird dad in that. Julien also, the trailer for it was a little catalyst for me naming other directors below as having a fierce individual style that is not to everybody's liking, these are provocateurs, and I was ripe for exploring.
2. Federico Fellini -- at his best he could be magical and such pathos like La Strada and Nights of Cabiria.
3. Ingmar Bergman -- Persona was revolutionary and my first batch of this great one were his personality disintegration films made right after it Hour of the Wolf, Shame and Passion of Anna, bleak as all get out, so many great films with him at the helm, I think fondly especially of The Virgin Spring and Autumn Sonata and his swan song Fanny and Alexander.
4. Michelangelo Antonioni -- his trilogy L'Avventura, La Notte and L'eclisse taught me the alienation effect, it was perfect encapsulation of not having anyone else to share my film interests.
5. Jean-Luc Godard -- Le Mepris like the trilogy above did that, but JLG was a whole other beast, I saw him as a Philosopher who made movies, dalliances with genre at the start, then the essay film and further away from the mainstream, before making those late career films that seemed so dense and difficult but with that playfulness with form, interrupting things just for the hell of it.
6. Luis Bunuel -- my intro with him was The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeousie, this was sophisticated surrealism!! All his late stuff is like that. But the raw 50s work is very notable too.
7. Carl Dreyer -- small output but those films are amongst the best films all round, Passion of Joan of Arc, Day of Wrath, Ordet and Gertrude being the most laudable and my number 1 horror Vampyr. In the upper eschelons with Bresson, Ozu and Mizoguchi who miss out on this list because these are only the filmmakers that fundamentally changed my perception of film.
8. Derek Jarman -- strong sense of tragic poetry
9. Rainer Werner Fassbinder -- relentless surge of creativity
10. Pier Paolo Pasolini -- fatalism at heart
11. Werner Schroeter -- friend of RWF, his experimental early period and Malina are mountaintop peaks in my film viewing overall.
2. Federico Fellini -- at his best he could be magical and such pathos like La Strada and Nights of Cabiria.
3. Ingmar Bergman -- Persona was revolutionary and my first batch of this great one were his personality disintegration films made right after it Hour of the Wolf, Shame and Passion of Anna, bleak as all get out, so many great films with him at the helm, I think fondly especially of The Virgin Spring and Autumn Sonata and his swan song Fanny and Alexander.
4. Michelangelo Antonioni -- his trilogy L'Avventura, La Notte and L'eclisse taught me the alienation effect, it was perfect encapsulation of not having anyone else to share my film interests.
5. Jean-Luc Godard -- Le Mepris like the trilogy above did that, but JLG was a whole other beast, I saw him as a Philosopher who made movies, dalliances with genre at the start, then the essay film and further away from the mainstream, before making those late career films that seemed so dense and difficult but with that playfulness with form, interrupting things just for the hell of it.
6. Luis Bunuel -- my intro with him was The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeousie, this was sophisticated surrealism!! All his late stuff is like that. But the raw 50s work is very notable too.
7. Carl Dreyer -- small output but those films are amongst the best films all round, Passion of Joan of Arc, Day of Wrath, Ordet and Gertrude being the most laudable and my number 1 horror Vampyr. In the upper eschelons with Bresson, Ozu and Mizoguchi who miss out on this list because these are only the filmmakers that fundamentally changed my perception of film.
8. Derek Jarman -- strong sense of tragic poetry
9. Rainer Werner Fassbinder -- relentless surge of creativity
10. Pier Paolo Pasolini -- fatalism at heart
11. Werner Schroeter -- friend of RWF, his experimental early period and Malina are mountaintop peaks in my film viewing overall.
46-50, M