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| Scorsese (left) with Robert DeNiro during the filming of Taxi Driver. |
Besides working in films for over 50 years, Bogdanovich has gotten to know a who’s who of Hollywood's greatest directors and actors including Howard Hawks, John Ford, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Henry Fonda and Cary Grant. Bogdanovich is wonderfully entertaining to listen to, not only because of all the stories he can tell, but because the way he tells them which often includes imitating the person he is discussing. He’s also damn funny.
Mankiewicz is an excellent interviewer and in the podcasts he includes snippets from interviews with those who have known, worked with and loved Bogdanovich as well as sound bytes from various films. Bogdanovich's own story is damn compelling. His second film was The Last Picture Show (1971) one of the greatest American films ever made. Period. He followed that with two other huge hits, What’s Up, Doc? (1972) and Paper Moon (1973). There then followed a succession of critical and box office flops.
Bogdanovich went on to make a lot of good films but nothing ever approached The Last Picture Show. He’s nothing to feel ashamed of, of course. He created a masterpiece, some other good films and has been an invaluable source of insight, information and anecdotes about the motion picture business. His story inspired me to look at some of the other better American directors of today and see how their career trajectories are going. I’ve limited myself to directors whose work I admire — so there’ll be nothing here about Clint Eastwood — and those who’ve been at it for at least 25 years. You'll note that this is totally subjective and I'm defining great, good, mediocre or bad films based entirely on my own taste -- though in most cases my opinions jibe with the general consensus.
It's interesting to note that several of these directors made their best films early in their careers. Why this is often the case is a topic I may explore at another time.
Martin Scorsese
In a period of 15 years he directed three of the greatest films of all time: Taxi Driver, (1976), Raging Bull (1980) and Goodfellas (1990). He has continued to crank out films in the 30 years since Goodfellas and although he won the Best Picture award for one of them (The Departed) (2006) he’s made no more masterpieces. Most of the films he’s made this century have been good (I particularly like The Aviator, (2004), Shutter Island (2008)) and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)) but they lack the spareness and muscle of his three great earlier works. Scorsese’s recent pictures suffer from excess. They are bloated and not necessarily because of their length. He’s lost clearly lost some of the edge he had as a younger director.
Woody Allen
Arguably America’s most prolific director, he hasn’t let up in over 50 years of cranking out movies although evil forces have kept his latest picture, Rainy Day in New York (2019), from being released in the States and goodness knows about his upcoming feature, Rifkin’s Festival (2020). In any event, Allen hit is stride in the late Seventies with Annie Hall (1977), Interiors (1978) and Manhattan (1978) coming out in successive years. The first and last of that trio represent, for me, his greatest work although one can hardly say there’s been much of a drop off considering the Eighties saw the releases of such great Allen productions as Stardust Memories (1980), Zelig (1983), Broadway Danny Rose (1984), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Radio Days (1987), Another Woman (1988) and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). That’s a helluva career in one decade. The Nineties were comparatively lean but still included Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), Bullets over Broadway (1994), Everyone Says I Love You (1996) and Deconstructing Harry (1997). The last 20 years have included some of Allen’s best work in Match Point (2005), Vicky Cristina, Barcelona (2008), Midnight in Paris (2011) Blue Jasmine (2013), and Wonder Wheel (2017). So while the 70/80s might have been his most fecund period, Allen has continued to grace us with great films and at 84 years of age does not appear to be slowing down.
Francis Ford Coppola
No one in the U.S. or anywhere else for that matter, has ever had a four picture run to match Coppola who from 1972 through 1979 made The Godfather (1972), The Conversation (1974), The Godfather Part 2 (1974) and Apocalypse Now (1979). He has since directed 15 feature films and some have been good but most forgettable and none an American classic. On the one hand it is a precipitous drop but on the other hand The Godfather alone is more than enough to hang your hat on.
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| The Coen Brothers, Joel (left) and Ethan |
It’s hard to believe that they’ve been at it for 36 years as to me they seem to young and fresh and still outside of the Hollywood establishment. They started with Blood Simple in 1984, a great debut film, and have consistently put out good to great films ever since including Fargo (1996), The Big Lewbowski (1998), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001), No Country For Old Men (2007), A Serious Man (2009) and Inside Llyewn Davis (2013). However since Davis they’ve only directed two films, both passable efforts, Hail, Caesar! (2016) and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018). Joel Coen was doing an adaptation of MacBeth when the lockdown took effect. It’s way too early to say they’ve fallen off their game but it will be interesting to see what they come up in the next few years. I would still have great faith in their ability to create another masterpiece.
Steven Spielberg
This is becoming a familiar refrain: His best work was at the beginning of his career starting in the 1970s. Four of his first five films were Jaws (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and ET (1982). He’s had four other terrific films since all from between 1989 and 1998: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Schindler’s List (1993), Amistad (1997) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). In the last 20 years he’s had a few good movies but nothing —again this is a familiar theme — to match his earlier work. He's become a mainstream director who does not challenge himself preferring safer projects.
Quentin Tarantino
The youngest on the list at 57, Tarantino hit the scene with Reservoir Dogs in 1992. He’s made four brilliant films: Pulp Fiction(1994), Jackie Brown (1997), Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) all spread out nicely over the past 25 years with one coming out just twelve months ago. He’s only made ten feature films and four are masterpieces and none of the other six have been bombs. He’s already had a great career and at 57 has a ways to go. Simply put, he marches to the beat of hims own drummer and this serves the creative juices quite well.
Jim Jarmusch
Like many others, Jarmusch had a blazing start to his career with Permanent Vacation (1980), Stranger Than Paradise (1984) and Down By Law (1986) back-to-back-to-back. In the following 24 years he’s made some films I’ve dearly loved (Dead Man (1995), Night on Earth (1991) and Patterson (2016)) as well as some such as Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) that I’ve dearly hated (can you dearly hate?). His most recent picture was The Dead Don’t Die (2019) which I didn’t see because I refuse to see anything about zombies. I also refuse to see any vampire movies but made an exception for Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) which I quite liked. There is zero evidence that his career flagging and at 67 could well have some more gems in him. Despite a few (for me) bombs, he’s had a terrific career with many of his better films later in his career.
Spike Lee
Spike’s first major film was his third and it was one of the greats of American cinema, Do the Right Thing(1989). It’s no insult to Mr. Lee to say that he’s done nothing since to match it. He’s had a very good if unspectacular career highlighted by Malcolm X (1992), Bamboozled (2000), Inside Man (2006), BlacKkKlansman (2018) and Da 5 Bloods (2020). He’s also made a lot of shorts, documentaries and documentary shorts. Spike Lee is 63, has another documentary in post production and a feature film in pre production, both likely delayed by the pandemic. He’s a had an exemplary career and it appears far from over.
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