Vertiggo wrote:1- François Truffaut
2- Luis Buñuel
3- Charles Chaplin
4- Kryzstof Kieslowski
5- Stanley Kubrick
Haha, that's a great way to describe them
It's going to change, that's a fact, but currently right now the five directors I have assigned
Jim Jarmusch
His films tie into a lot of my musical tastes. John Lurie of Lounge Lizards and Tom Waits frequently appear in his works, Iggy Pop is the frontman of my first ever "favorite band" and now among my "absolute favorite bands the Stooges. Neil Young does the soundtrack for Dead Man and is also the subject of a documentary by him. Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai's music is done by RZA and Coffe & Cigarettes has GZA, both of Wu-Tang Clan, a rap good as equally good as they are popular. Beyond the music, his stories are very post-modern, and his direction matches.
David Cronenberg
Although these directors are listed in the order they appear on my profile in no particular order, David Cronenberg is by far my favorite. In each of his decades working he made films that reflect the era, cinematiclly and socially. I'm not a big fan of excessive horror but The Brood and Shivers are two of the best in the genre and their time that I have seen. Although those were unique in their own right he really went crazy in the 80's, many consider that then he was at the top of his game. After the transition of Scanners, which is a ridiculous sci-fi horror story he belted out Videodrome, which is still my favorite film and even though I change "favorites" all the time, I don't see this and Cronenberg moving from their spots anytime soon. Then he gave us The Fly, a remake that surpasses the original in every way possible and the chilling Dead Ringers. The 90's brought the surrealistic Naked Lunch, a great example of how to film an "unfilmable novel" by my favorite author William S. Burroughs. Admittedly Crash and eXiztenZ are love or hate 'em, but I love them. The 00's he made Spider, Eastern Promises, two great films to be remembered from the decade and A History of Violence, easily a contender for "Best Of" and my personal Top 10 of the decade. I cannot wait to see what the future holds. Long live the new flesh!
Jean-Pierre Melville
I forgot where I read this so I'm paraphrasing here, but it was along the lines of "Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai defines cool," and I couldn't agree more. While writing some of the greatest Crime films ever made, especially in the Gangster subgenre, there's just something about the way he shoots it. Influenced by American Cinema, again Crime and Film Noir, and me being American, there's a lot to like as a lot of it feels very familiar, but at the same time presents something very new. Very European. Occasionally he stepped outside of Gangsters but most often still remained in Crime and always in Drama. He had changed his last name from *whatever* to Melville, in honor of Herman Melville, his favorite Author, and he picked a great one at that.
Jean-Luc Godard
It was a really hard choice for me to chose between Godard and Truffaut, both considered leading men for the French New Wave film movement. Godard's many subtexts appear and reappear through just about all of his films, sometimes more obvious than other times. His stories are just so damned charming and likeable, I find it hard to believe that someone could dislike them.
Kihacki Okamoto
Akira Kurosawa, Shohei Imamura, Yasujiro Ozu, Kon Ichikawa.... I'm not going to say the on a technical point that Kihachi Okamoto is a better director than any of those listed or others unlisted Japanese film makers, I would place any of them above Kihachi Okamoto, but god damn I find him so entertaining. He toys with classic Samurai conventions that makes him stand out in a sub-genre of films with so many to choose from. Sword of Doom makes the hero ambiguous and implies that he may have mental problems to make him so violent as expressed in the glorious ending scene. Kill! acknowledges that many of the great Spaghetti Westerns were heavily inspired by Samurai film, and with Kill! Kihachi Okamoto returns the favor. Samurai Assassin is a bit more standard but still extremely well made, Red Lion is more or less a Historical Comedy set with Samurai. You know what? I would place Okamoto with the listed directors actually.
Other directors that I think are true auteurs that if I had more than just five spaces here I would have listed up there with them. Don't be surprised in a week or two if or any other time that one of these names is swapped with one of the five above
Paul Thomas Anderson, François Truffaut, Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, Wes Anderson, Stanley Kubrick, Kar Wai Wong, Ridley Scott, Fritz Lang, Chan-Wook Park, Hayao Miyazaki, John Cassavetes, Richard Linklater.... and loads more that would just take up all of my space here. Five is such a small number!