MovieChat Forums > Jodaeiye Nader az Simin (2011) Discussion > Greatest Written-by-Director Film of All...

Greatest Written-by-Director Film of All Time?

posted 13 years ago by emvan
14 replies | jump to latest

Film is a collaborative art form. Very few of the great directors have written their own films solo. Hitchcock, Ford, Scorsese, and others wrote rarely or not at all. Fellini, Kubrick, Kurosawa and many others wrote all of their great films with collaborators.

In the 1000 Greatest Film List at TheyShootPictures, there are only seven films in the top 100 that have an original (non-adapted) screenplay written solo by the director. Three are by Bergman (the great exception to the above argument), and two by Robert Bresson. Here are the films with their IMDB rankings or score:

42. Persona (IMDB #192)
53. The Seventh Seal (#109)
60. Au Hasard Balthazar (Bresson) (7.9)
78. Fanny and Alexander (#206)
88. Pickpocket (Bresson) (7.9)
89. Aguirre: The Wrath of God (Werner Herzog) (8.1)
100. Star Wars (George Lucas) (#17)

It's worth noting, however, that Lucas showed his script to countless uncredited advisors and wrote and rewrote it based on their feedback ... and when he stopped doing this, he started writing complete crap.

Here are the corresponding films from the IMDB Top 100, with their Greatest Films ranking:

13. Inception (Christopher Nolan, who usually writes with brother Jonathan)
17. Star Wars (Greatest Films #100)
31. Leon: The Professional (Luc Besson) (not in the top 1000)
46. Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki) (#439)
57. The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck) (#581)
57. Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino) (#350)
69. A Separation
94. Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro) (#726)
99. Princess Mononoke (Miyazaki) (not in the top 1000)

Inception and of course A Separation are too new to have Top 1000 rankings.

If you eliminate all the films that are topped in both rankings by another film, you end up with five candidates for the greatest film ever that was written solo by its director. But I've already said that that really wasn't true of Star Wars, so it comes down to:

Persona
The Seventh Seal
Inception
A Separation

I actually think that's the order -- backwards.

(Well, personally I think it's the five 1/4 hour version of Fanny and Alexander, but you can obviously do a lot more with a canvas of that size, and it's clear that the theatrical-length version is not quite as well regarded as the other two films.)

Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.

[–] rockin_metal_baz3310 13 years ago

Its a good film, but not that good!

[–] deadbunny28 13 years ago

Where is Wild Strawberries by Bergman?...btw Fellini may have had help writers but they were definitely his stories...also where is Luis Bunuel on your list...p.s. this movie was great, but nothing beats Ingmar Bergman...

[–] emvan 12 years ago

The Sight and Sound poll film poll was just released and I was thrilled to see Fanny and Alexander much higher on the directors' poll (16th) than the critics' (84th). Personally I think that is the answer to my question, but Bergman had 5 1/4 hours of canvas to paint on, and Faradhi had the standard 2 hours.

I liked Wild Strawberries a great deal (obviously), but it wasn't magical for me the way F&A or The Seventh Seal was. I think I tend to love small, understated character studies a bit less than other cinephiles (Tokyo Story and Ikiru are two other movies I admire a ton but don't quite love the way I do many other films.) I suspect that many of these will be even better on a second viewing, but there's so much I haven't seen yet, having become a film buff late in life.

BTW, I just saw the film for the third time (first at home, on Blu-Ray), and I once again picked up things I had never seen before. I'm showing it again tomorrow (I had 12 friends interested in seeing it, more than fit in my loving room at one time!) and I expect it will get deeper and better again.

Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.

[–] deadbunny28 12 years ago

yeah its an interesting list, what is cool too is that you mentioned Leon the Professional, I love that film and always felt it had been very under-appreciated...as I said Fellini was definitely the idea man behind his work as well and you should give La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2 some love too if you already haven't, really great stuff

[–] emvan 12 years ago

The only two Fellini films I've seen and I adored them both; La Dolce Vita is one of my 25 favorite films of all time (based on just the single viewing) and 8 1/2 is in my top 40. Looking forward to seeing more of him!

Re Fellini being the idea man -- true of course, but one of the points I was making was that so many auteurs preferred to work with someone they could bounce ideas off of. There are many levels you can identify for how much writing the director does, although of course they blur together ...

Solo writing (Bergman)
The same but with important help from uncredited friends (Lucas, Star Wars)
Writing original screenplays with help of a collaborator (Fellini, sometimes Scorsese)
Writing an adaptation, alone
Writing an adaptation, with collaborator

I note that Christopher Nolan went from the last one on this list (The Prestige to the first (Inception ... that's flexibility.

Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.

[–] rclerebours 12 years ago

I have only recently begun to seriously watch movies, but for me, this is the greatest movie I have ever seen, period.

Learning that it was written by the director is a just an added bonus for me!

I love looking at rankings and lists, as well as personal opinions, to formulate some conclusions about topics like this. Thanks, this was a good read!

(And now, from your "weeding down method," I have more films to add to my watchlist!)

[–] SofaOnWheels 12 years ago

I wasn't big on Pan's Labyrinth, but it's such a completely original and unique film, with a world completely created from Del Toro's imagination. I'd put that one pretty high on this list.

Star Wars in the 70's is pretty hard to beat.

[–] ehsndlr 12 years ago

as a movie buff i must say YES, i think a separation is the Greatest

[–] jimpemmas 12 years ago

Pulp Fiction.

http://www.imdb.com/user/ur1981820/ratings

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] PowderedToastMan333 12 years ago

My top 5:

1. Blissfully Yours (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
2. Dog Star Man (Stan Brakhage)
3. As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (Jonas Mekas)
4. Hana-bi (Takeshi Kitano)
5. Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (Shuji Terayama)

[–] namlt243 12 years ago

When you mention "greatest" written-by-director films, you should at least consider some masterpieces by Quentin Tarantino.

[–] PowderedToastMan333 12 years ago

I would include Pulp Fiction in my list, but it isn't written by Tarantino alone.

[–] federeragassi 12 years ago

I think its fair to include Pulp Fiction. Tarantino wrote the entire screenplay; Avary came up with the idea for one of the stories which is why he gets partial credit. A separation is fantastic but I think Pulp Fiction is a more impressive work on the whole.