The People Behind the Camera

I'm pretty excited about the ideas I have for the blog to keep it updated and to keep myself writing. Movie-going and review writing is pretty slow these days for me, simply because there isn't a whole lot out there that is appealing at this point. This first series I have in mind is one that I may never truly "finish", but definitely want to start.

It's going to be an ongoing series I'm (tentatively) calling "The People Behind the Camera". Some call them directors, others auteurs, but for the sake of making this an open idea, this is what I'm calling it for now. What exactly is an auteur? To put it simply, it's a director that has a distinctive creative vision, which can be seen in each of his or her work as if they were the sole author of the film. In other words, even though a film may be written and produced by someone else, the director is seen as the primary creator, because of his or her personal ideas and visions, of the story.

In my opinion, I think directors can be more famous than the stars they use in their films. Back in the 50's and 60's, people became excited for a new Hitchcock film not because of who starred in it, but because of who was in the director's chair. Hitchcock was sort of the first "director diva", who paved the way for people like Stanley Kubrik, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, and Steven Spielberg. Think about it: how many times have your heard someone say, "let's go see the new Spielberg movie"? When a good director comes out with a new movie, it's like a must-see event in my mind, sort of along the lines of March Madness, or the World Series.

What I want to do with this series at first is shine a light on directors that are working today that should, or already are, in that same "diva" status as Hitchcock. Now, I'm not going to say that these directors are as good or better than the likes of Hitchcock and Kubrik, but I do think their body of work is worth recognizing. Depending on the director, I may study their best films individually, while also pinpointing those themes that make the director an auteur, or, in some cases, have one post focusing on the director's entire body of work. It mostly depends on the amount of films the director has made. For instance, I'd go a lot more in depth on Steven Spielberg than I would, say, Michel Gondry. This is simply because Gondry only has, in my opinion, one work of recognition, even though he shows his vision in all of his movies.

I also want to point out I won't necessarily be talking only about a director's best achievements. Some of these people have films just as bad as their great ones, and it's important to see why these films don't work and the great ones do.

I know this sounds like a really artsy and self-indulgent thing to do, but I hope that it doesn't turn out that way. I hope that it becomes a way for you, and others, to look at these directors differently when you see their films. Maybe you'll discover something you haven't noticed before. I hope I can point out a few ideas that can get people interested in seeing more films by a director, or to become interested in someone they may not have been initially.

It's going to be an ongoing idea: one that doesn't have an end date or a definitive amount of people attached. I may get away from it come awards time and go back to it, or I may continue through with a new film, or director, every week. I may also cover multiple directors at once. Some of the directors I hope to talk about at some point are: David Fincher, Martin Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson, Joel and Ethan Coen, Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, and a slew of others.

However, I'm going to start with one man who's directing a pretty big movie coming out this summer: Christopher Nolan. I'll be looking at all seven of his feature films, writing about each one individually, while also looking at the over-arching themes and ideas seen throughout his films. I'm hoping I can have the post about Following up in the next week, and have all seven movies done by the time The Dark Knight Rises is released in July.