Director vs. Individual films

[lordofdance]

I try not to base my opinion of a film on what I know about the director, but instead take each movie as an individual piece of work. This isn't always easy, of course, but I think it helps me stay objective.

[sacrilegend]

It's pretty hard, because I always tend to compare movies to others by the same director. And I also seem to judge them before I actually analyze them, just for being by a certain director.

[ie]

There are individual experiences depending on each movie, but I can agree with the auteur theory. I feel that the bad movies by good directors are the ones that were made with compromises or what have you.

When you compare movies made by the same director, made in similar genres, with similar themes or even completely different movies, you can come out with some really enlightening results. I told criterionmaster about this one:

Harakiri and Taste of Cherry.
Who would relate a samurai movie and an Iranian drama? But actually, if you know a little bit of both cultures, and have seen both movies, I don't even need to explain any further about what they share in common.


So, I voted for Director's overall body of work.
I'm starting to like the idea of watching a director's entire body of work, much like how when you really like a song, you check out more music by the band that played that song. Even though this idea can be a little expensive.


As a footnote, this habit might not always be that great. Lady Vengeance possibly could have worked on its own, and I do still like it, but when thrown into a revenge trilogy, it seems out of place. Of course, this was all a successful marketing scheme established to better market an unmarketable movie, but the end result led to unfair comparisons between movies that were only barely related.

[sacrilegend]

ie said:

So, I voted for Director's overall body of work.
I'm starting to like the idea of watching a director's entire body of work, much like how when you really like a song, you check out more music by the band that played that song. Even though this idea can be a little expensive.

It is a pretty cool idea, eh? But it could get out of hand when you delve deeper into the obscure stuff.

[Clark Nova]

i'm definitely in the middle. of course i have my list of favorite directors and try to check out as many movies by them as i can, but i also try to keep them separate and treat each movie as a separate entity. that's why my massive movie list doesn't have entire groupings of movies by the same directors numerically...i treat each one like what they are: a different movie. of course i'll have my prejudices in terms of who directed it, but that's unavoidable.

[criterionmaster]

I definitely base movies on other films, more specifically other films by the same director, but I try not to do it while watching. It is mainly an after thought, "that film is Kurosawa's weakest work" or whatever. And if we are talking about "what we know about the director" like his personal life or what we think about him as a person, then obviously no because look at Clark, he is a fucking perverted child lover, but I still love the man's films.

And yeah, I do try and see a director’s overall body of work, but I try to forget while watching it that the man made other films I may like or not like. But for bad movies/most new movies [as well] I do judge before I see, but a lot of times that is based on how bad the film looks rather than who directed it.