Thoughts on the 2015 Director Breakdown Challenge

Wow- I did it! I set my mind to something, and I did it!

56 films by 13 directors in one calendar year. Actually I finished before November by doubling up in three different months. This project has been a major time-suck but I couldn't be happier that I stuck with it. As a brief reminder, the directors that I watched (in order) were: Jean-Luc Godard, Wong Kar-wai, Terrence Malick, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Robert Altman, Federico Fellini, Francis Ford Coppola, Pedro Almodóvar, François Truffaut, Spike Lee, Michael Haneke, Ingmar Bergman, and Roman Polanski.

I feel much better-versed in the language of film now- some serious knowledge gaps have been closed. And yet, the project was far from perfect. In December of 2014 when I put this little shindig together, I probably didn't spend enough time deciding on who to watch or what films to watch. This is an immense undertaking, and the pre-production could've been handled with a little more care. Why not David Lynch over Wong Kar-wai? How did I pick Alphaville over Week End or Masculin Feminin? Frankly I can't remember. I'm also a little dismayed at how many films I couldn't find via (free) streaming services or on Netflix discs: Day for Night, Short Cuts, Crooklyn, and many more.

That being said, for such a hastily put-together project I'm also pretty proud of how well it turned out. All of these directors have contributed special and impressive things to the art of cinema and I don't regret watching a single one, even if they didn't all agree with me. I discovered that I'm impatient with a certain style of meandering art-house film, and unfortunately that description fits a lot of titles from a lot of the directors on this list. I especially struggled with Wong Kar-wai and Terrence Malick, and it probably didn't help that I watched them back-to-back. Robert Altman's movies are also fairly anti-adrenaline-inducing, and I'm glad that I front-loaded these three filmmakers. If they had come more towards the end I might not have made it.

I actually preferred a lot of the depressing movies on this list to the slow-paced ones. Especially films by Haneke, Bergman, and Polanski. I was either chilled to the bone or moved to tears by some of their movies, but I was never bored (well, maybe once during The White Ribbon). I understand why people don't love to put these movies on on a sunny Saturday afternoon (which is exactly what we did with both The Piano Teacher and The Pianist) because they make you feel shitty, but even when I find the subject matter unpleasant I don't necessarily find the experience unpleasant. I know people (even in the film industry, or perhaps especially in the film industry) who only like to watch popcorn action flicks or happy-ending romantic comedies. That's fine if you're only ever looking for escapism. But then you might forget about the "art" part of cinema that can stretch so many emotional muscles. It's like food- even if you're usually drawn to the sweet (romance/comedy) or salty (drama/action) stuff, I think it gets awfully boring if you don't mix it up with spicy (scary), sour (sad), tangy (experimental), and umami (educational) flavors. There's a whole beautiful spectrum for your palate to experience. The same goes for stylistic choices or black and white films or films with subtitles. Don't knock it till you try it, everyone- you might not know what amazing lovely things you're missing!

My favorite films of this experiment were Contempt, Apocalypse Now, 8 1/2, Jules et Jim, Persona, Repulsion, and all of the movies by Pedro Almodóvar. If you can't tell by that list, I like movies with a certain degree of nastiness in them. I like tension. If I had to pick a favorite genre, it would be Tense. That feeling can come about in psychological horror movies, war movies, or domestic dramas. Tension can rise up and flare in just about any situation, and I like the movies that examine the build-up and fallout that results. I need to give a special shout-out to Almodóvar who made the most colorful, savage, comical, interesting, and intense movies of anyone on this list. I cannot stress that enough. If I hated every other movie I watched this year, this project would still be worth it for introducing me to that man's body of work. 

As the year and the project wore on, I realized I was still missing a few highly-regarded works from these directors. I'd like to fill in the knowledge gaps within the knowledge gaps, and someday soon watch these movies: 

Godard: Week End, Masculin Feminin, Two or Three Things I Know About Her, Goodbye to Language

Almodóvar: The Flower of My Secret, Broken Embraces

Truffaut: Day For Night, Stolen Kisses, The Wild Child, Fahrenheit 451

Altman: Short Cuts, Brewster McCloud, Gosford Park

Lee: Jungle Fever, Crooklyn

Fellini: Nights of Cabiria

Bergman: Cries and Whispers, Hour of the Wolf, Scenes from a Marriage

There are also a number of directors I'd like to add to this list of 13, including: David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock, Woody Allen, Gaspar Noe, Bernardo Bertolucci, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Peter Bogdanovitch, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Errol Morris, Werner Herzog, and Lars Von Trier. Hey that's 11 directors- I could do that in 2016! But maybe I need a year off so I don't burn-out, which almost happened a few times this year.

In the interest of being completist, here is the final list of movies that I watched, their rankings out of 10, and Academy Awards they won:

• Jean-Luc Godard (January)
• Vivre Sa Vie (1962) - 7.5
• Contempt (1963) - 8.5
• Pierrot le Fou (1963) - 8
• Alphaville (1964) - 6
• Wong Kar-wai (January)
• Chungking Express (1994) - 6
• In The Mood for Love (2000) - 6
• The Grandmaster (2013) - 5.5
• Terrence Malick (February)
• Badlands (1973) - 7.5
• Days of Heaven (1978) - 6 - Best Cinematography
• The Thin Red Line (1998) - 7 
• Alejandro Jodorowsky (March)
• El Topo (1970) - 5.5
• The Holy Mountain (1973) - 6
• Santa Sangre (1989) - 6.5
• Robert Altman (March)
• M*A*S*H (1970) - 8 - Best Adapted Screenplay
• McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) - 8
• The Long Goodbye (1973) - 7
• Nashville (1975) - 7.5 - Best Original Song
• The Player (1992) - 6.5
• Federico Fellini (April)
• La Strada (1954) - 8.5 - Best Foreign Language Film
• La Dolce Vita (1960) - 8 - Best Costume Design
• 8 1/2 (1963) - 8.5 - Best Foreign Language Film, Best Costume Design
• Fellini Satyricon (1969) - 5
• Amarcord (1973) - 7.5 - Best Foreign Language Film
• Francis Ford Coppola (May)
• American Graffiti (1973) - 7
• Apocalypse Now (1979) - 9.5 - Best Cinematography, Best Sound
• The Outsiders (1983) - 6
• Rumble Fish (1983) - 5.5
• Pedro Almodóvar (June)
• Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) - 8
• All About my Mother (1999) - 9 - Best Foreign Language Film
• Talk To Her (2002) - 9.5 - Best Original Screenplay
• Bad Education (2004) - 10
• Volver (2006) - 10
• François Truffaut (July)
• The 400 Blows (1959) - 7.5
• Shoot the Piano Player (1960) - 7.5
• Jules et Jim (1962) 8.5
• The Last Metro (1980) - 7
• Spike Lee (August)
• She's Gotta Have It (1986) - 7
• Malcolm X (1992) - 7
• Clockers (1995) - 5
• He Got Game (1998) - 7.5
• Summer of Sam (1999) - 5.5
• Michael Haneke (September)
• The Piano Teacher (2001) - 7.5
• Time of the Wolf (2003) - 6.5
• The White Ribbon (2009) - 7
• Amour (2012) - 9.5 - Best Foreign Language Film
• Ingmar Bergman (October)
• Wild Strawberries (1957) - 7.5
• The Virgin Spring (1960) - 7 - Best Foreign Language Film
• Through a Glass Darkly (1961) - 7.5 - Best Foreign Language Film
• Winter Light (1963) - 7
• Persona (1966) - 9
• Fanny and Alexander (1982) - 8 - Best Foreign Language Film, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design
• Roman Polanski (October)
• Repulsion (1965) - 9
• Tess (1979) - 7 - Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design
• Frantic (1988) - 6
• The Pianist (2003) - 8.5 - Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, Best Lead Actor
• The Ghost Writer (2010) - 7
• Carnage (2011) - 7

That's 25 Oscar wins (including 8 Best Foreign Language wins), and of course that's not counting all of the nominations, Palm d'Ors, Golden Bears, BAFTAs, Golden Globes, etc. etc. that these garnered. It's a prestigious bunch. Perhaps the most shocking revelation is the lack of Best Director wins, which only 1 director got 1 time (Polanski for The Pianist). I thought auteurs were meant to be honored for their visions! As some of these directors might say, c'est la vie.

Well, I think that's just about it. As mentioned above, there's plenty more cinema to explore and in fact I'm probably going to dive right into David Lynch in November. I'll also try to get my hands on some of the films from these directors that I missed. What can I say? I'm a glutton for punishment. Delicious, sour, spicy, tangy, rich punishment. As for this blog, it has served me well for the purpose of cataloging this year-long journey but I hope to now expand it and use it for other avenues. I want to publish list-icles, movie reviews, op-ed pieces, and anything else that I fancy as it relates to the world of movies. And with <1 average viewer per day, I doubt anyone cares what I do with this blog! So I'll use it how I please! Thanks for reading, mom and girlfriend!!

Spike Lee (August)

"People of color have a constant frustration of not being represented, or being misrepresented, and these images go around the world."

It had to be Spike Lee in August, right? Lee's best-known work (and best work, for that matter) is Do The Right Thing which is basically the movie version of the month of August. It's hot, it's sweaty, fuses are short and tempers flare. It had to be Lee in August. Do The Right Thing is an incredibly important movie to me. It had a way of showing people with real faults, mistrusting one another despite living in tight spaces. It showed racial divides without being ham-fisted (like Crash and so many other movies that have tried to address race problems come off). Plus it's like a time capsule- the music, the clothes, the language... and say what you will about Spike Lee casting himself in most of his movies (early on, anyways) but Mookie is a fantastic and relatable character.

Other than DTRT I had also seen (and very much enjoyed) 25th Hour and Inside Man. Very different movies, but both had qualities that I appreciated. For this project I wanted to go back to Spike Lee's early days when he was making such a huge splash on independent cinema. Dude has made a ton of movies, so I chose the ones that I thought were most famous: Summer of Sam, Malcolm X, He Got Game, Clockers, She's Gotta Have It, and Crooklyn. I chose... mostly well. I didn't need Clockers (although it is Mekhi Phifer's first movie) and I probably should've added Jungle Fever and maybe one more, Bamboozled or Mo' Better Blues or something. Also Netflix didn't have Crooklyn dangit.

I started with Summer of Sam, which is a helluva ride. I love Adrien Brody and John Leguizamo's characters but the film was all over the place. Murder, drugs, clubs, sex... those aren't bad elements to have in a film but it felt awfully disjointed. Malcolm X was probably longer than it needed to be and the beginning felt like a very weird West Side Story-esque musical; not based in reality at all. But over the course of the 3.5 hour epic the story really came together. I didn't know much about Malcolm X going into the movie and by the end I was curious to learn even more. Crooklyn was underwhelming, as I mentioned, although Harvey Keitel puts in some good work in the "white cop with an idea" role and the twist did catch me off-guard. She's Gotta Have It is Lee's first "joint" and I can see why it put him on the map. It was unflinching and it looked at sexuality and responsibility in an engaging way- with black three-dimensional characters in lead roles! I didn't love it but I liked it and can see why it was pretty ground-breaking for the era (and budget!). Lastly I watched He Got Game and loved it! Ray Allen and Denzel Washington are both incredible in this father-son story, and the basketball star cameos are all great. This movie takes place in a universe where convicted murderers are set free and universities can tempt prospective students with sex and cars, but ignoring all that this movie is very fun.

Spike Lee has always tried to keep pace with Woody Allen in terms of movie outputs, and just like that old New Yorker Lee has struck movie gold many times. But maybe (t)he(y) should focus a bit more on the quality of each one rather than putting >1 out every year.

• She's Gotta Have It (1986) - 7
• Malcolm X (1992) - 7
• Clockers (1995) - 5
• He Got Game (1998) - 7.5
• Summer of Sam (1999) - 5.5

September brings us the bleak world of Michael Haneke, and I'm finally caught up with the present!

Overview of the 2015 Director Breakdown Challenge

I probably should have made this post on December 31st, 2014 rather than midway through March, but here we are and what're ya gonna do. My new year's resolution this year was to close some gaps in my movie-knowledge by watching some of the classics that I had missed over the years. Rather than throw darts at the "1001 movies you should watch before you die list," I decided to break it down by directors that I appreciated (or who I assumed I would appreciate) who had three or more movies that I hadn't seen yet. Then I could choose 12 directors and knock one out each month.

I scoured the internet for "best-of" lists to narrow down my potential candidates, but in the end it wasn't too tricky. There aren't that many directors who have a very large ouevre, are extremely critically-acclaimed, and are mostly-unwatched-by-me. The ones I did find were mostly white(ish) males, but that group has held the overwhelming majority in this 100-year old industry so I guess that shouldn't have surprised me. In the end I got it down to 13 candidates and decided I could bleed into 2016 if need be. Here they are in alphabetical order, although I've been choosing which one to watch at random:

• Pedro Almodovar
• All About My Mother
• Talk To Her
• Volver
• Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown
• Robert Altman
• The Long Goodbye
• MASH
• McCabe and Mrs. Miller
• Nashville
• Shortcuts
• Ingmar Bergman
• Cries and Whispers
• Fanny and Alexander
• Persona
• Through A Glass Darkly
• Wild Strawberries
• Francis Ford Coppola
• American Graffiti
• Apocalypse Now
• The Outsiders
• Rumble Fish
• Federico Fellini
• 8 1/2
• Amarcord
• La Dolce Vita
• La Strada
• Satyricon
• Jean-Luc Godard
• Alphaville
• Contempt
• Pierrot le Fou
• Vivre Sa Vie
• Michael Haneke
• Amour
• The Piano Teacher
• Time of the Wolf
• The White Ribbon
• Alejandro Jodorowsky
• The Holy Mountain
• Santa Sangre
• El Topo
• Spike Lee
• Bamboozled
• Clockers
• Crooklyn
• He Got Game
• She's Gotta Have It
• Summer Of Sam
• Terrence Malick
• Badlands
• Days of Heaven
• The Thin Red Line
• Roman Polanski
• Carnage
• Frantic
• The Ghost Writer
• The Pianist
• Repulsion
• François Truffaut
• The 400 Blows
• Day For Night
• Jules and Jim
• The Last Metro
• Shoot the Piano Player
• Wong Kar Wai
• Chungking Express
• The Grandmaster
• In The Mood For Love

Whew- that's quite a list! There are a few I maybe saw when I was very young, but they qualified because I cannot remember a single thing about them. I also have seen a number of great movies by these directors (Do The Right Thing, Breathless, Chinatown, etc.) but clearly still missed a lot of their work. Most of them I don't have any excuse for not seeing yet- and that's why I'm doing this! Hooray for filling knowledge gaps!

Once I got started I noticed that many of these directors were from different parts of the world and I decided to try to pair some cuisine with my cinema- that half of the experiment hasn't been going so well (although I'm still trying to make it work). The movie watching has been going swimmingly however; in January I knocked out Godard and Wong Kar Wai, in February (short month) I watched Malick, and earlier this week I wrapped up Jodorowsky. I'll do a full post per director after this initial post (I owe them that much) and then hopefully post more regularly as I go along. Next up: Robert Altman!