29. Honorary Mentions

G!

Time to face the facts: I'm running
Out of favorite directors to sing my
Praises for, and to a greater extent
I'm running out of sufficiently original
Praises too. Before I unveil my last and
Personally most revered director of all,
Here's a haphazard salute to some great
Directors I did not cover with this odd-
Numbered cycle of monologues: Robert
Altman, the salad-making rebel fighting
The Hollywood system, whose movies
Of huge ensemble casts, unorthodox
Storytelling and improvised naturalism
Are spectacular sights to behold even
If you do not like his style; Sergio Leone,
Whose spaghetti westerns represent the
Pinnacle of the genre, and also produced
Once Upon A Time In America, which I
Find to be among the saddest and most
Atrociously underrated films ever; Martin
Scorsese, who also made one hell of a sad
Movie, with Raging Bull, and is of course
Best known as the godfather of gangster
Movies (that aside, he had directed an
Excellent adaptation of The Invention of
Hugo Cabret, which does fall into the
Entertainment for all ages category), and
A stellar handler of period styles; Akira
Kurosawa, whose most reputed movies
I had watched all just this summer, and
Show the Japanese master as a pioneer
Of original, wildly influential cinematic
Tales, humanist compassion, and grand
Black-and-white photography; Ang Lee,
Versatile adapter of a rich collection of
Literary works; Michael Mann, the go-to
Director to make stylish urban thrillers;
Brian De Palma, another stylist (and the
Second most prominent user of bloody
Violence after Sam Peckinpah); and
Ingmar Bergman, Sam Mendes, Danny
Boyle, Christopher Nolan, Alan J. Pakula,
David Lean, Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock,
Howard Hawks, Don Siegel, Sidney Lumet,
John Frankenheimer, Franklin J. Schaffner,
Isao Takahata, Steven McQueen, Darren
Aronofsky, Steven Soderbergh, and more
Greats I've yet to be introduced to. Of these
Fabulous directors I sang no long-winded
Praise for because I either had not seen
Enough of their films or they had not
Amassed a sufficiently wide-spanning
Filmography to be deemed consistently
Great. A great director uses the medium
Of film to communicate the language of
Art. Aside from music, film is arguably
The most expressive communication
Form there is; such a medium of
Expression cannot be bound solely
To commercial interests or mass
Appeal, and I think all great
Directors have understood
That, hence their ability to
Produced films of great
Merit, not simply because
They entertain, more
Because of what they tell.