considering the director
“Although the auteur theory emphasizes the body of a director’s work rather than isolated masterpieces, it is expected of great directors that they make great films every so often.”
I said in class that I haven’t really thought about the directors of the movies I watch, and it’s hard for me to notice a pattern or see an evolution of a director even if I do see several of their movies if they’re not all in the same vein. Just for kicks, I decided to look up some of the directors of my favorite movies in my DVD collection, and I found that rarely did I have a director more than once on the list. These are the few that did:
- Len Wiseman - Underworld, Underworld: Evolution, Live Free or Die Hard
- Zack Snyder - 300, Watchmen
- Johnathan Lynn - Clue, My Cousin Vinny
- Ben Stiller - Zoolander, Tropic Thunder
- Kevin Smith - Dogma, Clerks II
- Adam McKay - Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Step Brothers
- Chris Columbus - Home Alone, RENT
There were a great many names that I didn’t recognize, and a few that while I only own one movie of theirs, I’ve seen several things that they’ve done. For example: Nancy Meyers (The Parent Trap, What Women Want, The Holiday [own it], It’s Complicated) or Jon Favreau (Iron Man [own it], Iron Man 2, Cowboys & Aliens).
As for Christopher Nolan, the only films I haven’t seen directed by him are Following, Insomnia and The Prestige. Auteur theory is a completely different way for me to look at the shots and viewings of his films; to look more specifically at use of color or direction of the actors or the scene cuts to create the whole and look for evolution from Memento…
to The Dark Knight.
