Sergio Leone looks like a good example. Looking at his filmography, I'm actually really surprised at how few films he made. I would have thought he was more prolific. I guess just because when I think of Western directors, I think of John Ford who made something like 672 films I believe.
ShogunRua wrote:The movie right before that, Find Me Guilty (2006), was excellent, too. There's a lot to be said for getting a strong acting performance by Vin Diesel in a typically character-driven, dialogue-intense Lumet feature.
I wasn't familiar with this movie and saw a bit of it randomly on tv a year or two ago. I was cracking up as soon as I saw Diesel, and then was quickly shocked at how competent he was. I only watched a couple minutes, but this is one I'll have to go check out. I've seen woefully few Lumet movies, but they've all been great with the exception of The Wiz.
Rumplesink wrote:I'm sure there's a bunch more, but it does seem that, as a general rule, a director's work tends to follow a bell curve in terms of quality.
Isn't this sort of surprising? In a vaccuum, I'd have expected that directors would tend to get better over time and produce their better films later in their career. But experience just doesn't seem to bear that out and I wonder why.