TV Cream
Directors’ Directory
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1.8KALLEN, Woody
The most gravely serious of celluloid clowns. Always ‘New York’s neurotic nebbish’. In a wry article for the Guardian Guide, pick September...
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1.7KALTMAN, Robert
The king of ensemble satire. Never happier than when filming twenty simultaneously yammering actors from atop a giant crane. His films reflect...
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1.4KANDERSON, Lindsay
The socialist Eisenstein. Had a rough time of it at school, by all accounts. ‘The introverts always scream the loudest.’ ‘Not true!...
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1.5K
ARGENTO, Dario
The baron of bloodshed. His colleagues advised him that using contemporary synthesised prog rock to soundtrack his films would cause them to...
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1.4K
ATTENBOROUGH, Lord Richard of
An institution. Always ‘the indefatigable Sir Dickie’. The professional’s professional. Never approaches the cinematic wicket at half-cock, however small the job. Only...
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1.4K
BERGMAN, Ingmar
In a wry article for the Guardian Guide, always ‘the sombre Swede’. More people have filmed humorous sketches parodying The Seventh Seal...
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1.4K
BESSON, Luc
The stylist’s stylist. So confident of his own talent he thinks nothing of spending $50 million filming an idle daydream he had...
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1.6K
BOORMAN, John
He only makes a film every six years, but every one is a masterpiece. If someone mentions Exorcist II: the Heretic, say:...
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1.5K
BROOKS, Mel
A decidedly wayward comic talent. Consistency may elude him, but on his day he can turn a plate of beans, a comfort...
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1.4K
BUÑUEL, Luis
Scourge of the establishment. He knew better than anyone the dark, perverted heart beating at the centre of the Catholic church. ‘Of...
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1.6K
BURTON, Tim
The spindly small-town elf who made Goth respectable. The Obergruppenfuhrer of odd. ‘When he was a little boy, the circus left to...
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1.4K
CAMERON, James
Mention his ‘unmatched on-set generalship’. The De Mille de nos jours. He may not know one end of a camera from the...
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1.3K
CARPENTER, John
The no-budget polymath. Never happier than when directing a high- octane action sequence with one hand and simultaneously playing the score on...
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1.4K
CIMINO, Michael
The folie de grandeur that was Heaven’s Gate may have put paid to the idea of the true Hollywood auteur once and...
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1.3K
COEN, The brothers
Always ‘those enigmatic sibling auteurs, the mysterious Coen brothers’. Only they truly understand their own films. In a wry article for the...
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1.3K
COPPOLA, Francis Ford
Always ‘the bearded colossus of the sprawling American saga’. The director’s director. In a wry article for the Guardian Guide, speculate on...
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1.3K
CORMAN, Roger
The budget behemoth. Personally oversaw more than two thousand motion pictures from 1960-65 alone, on an average budget of fifty dollars apiece....
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1.4K
COX, Alex
Always ‘British cinema’s prodigal son, the much-maligned maverick Alex Cox’. His films may not be to anyone’s taste, but you have to...
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1.5K
CRONENBERG, David
The Dauphin of decomposition. Make reference to his ‘Freudian use of prosthetics’. Can’t adapt books for toffee. His catalogue of aesthetic obsessions...
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1.6K
De PALMA, Brian
The Primark Hitchcock. ‘Unfair! While it’s true that anyone with money and a megaphone could have made the shot-for-shot remake of Vertigo...
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1.6K
EDWARDS, Blake
A decidedly wayward comic talent. Consistency may elude him, but on his day he can turn a pool cue, a toilet roll...
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1.3K
FELLINI, Federico
Always ‘the Master’. Philip French writes: ‘Fellini’s La Dolce Vita marks the consummation of his ‘mature’ style. Gone are the self-conscious neo-realist...
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1.4K
FORBES, Brian
In a wry article for the Guardian Guide, make mocking references to Nescafe adverts.
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1.3K
FORD, John
Always ‘the Master’. He painted the broad canvas of the American west with the meticulous brush of personal dignity. ‘Of course, the...
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1.4K
FRIEDKIN, William
Turned a dime-store horror novel into a milestone of modern cinema. Mark Kermode writes: ‘Not only is The Exorcist the scariest film...
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1.4K
GILLIAM, Terry
Paradoxically, the eternal child of Hollywood is now making more mature films than any of your so-called Dogme school of directors. Has...
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1.7K
GODARD, Jean-Luc
The cold-hearted romantic. Who else but Godard could take a minor Gregory Peck western, strip it apart shot by shot, then reassemble...
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1.4K
GREENAWAY, Peter
The middle-brow’s middle-brow. Creates visual enigmas rather than films in the conventional, Hollywood sense. Has a knowledge of the classical painters so...
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1.4K
HERZOG, Werner
Always ‘the steely-eyed Teutonic polymath’. Never felt a film was worthwhile if it didn’t involve hypnotising his all-dwarf cast to drag a...
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1.5K
HITCHCOCK, Alfred
Always ‘the Master’. His influence remains so all-pervasive in modern cinema it is perfectly possible to write a wry article about his...
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1.4K
HUGHES, John
The erstwhile brigadier of bachelor rudery has grown up to become the chief petty officer of children’s slapstick. In a wry profile...
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1.5K
IVORY, James
The harbourmaster of heritage. His chocolate box recreations of our colonial past are now so internationally renowned they are in danger of...
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1.3K
JACKSON, Peter
The Grand Moff of gore. In a review of his latest blockbuster, be sure to mention how far he’s come since the...
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1.3K
JARMAN, Derek
The gay Spike Lee. Scourge of the establishment. Would think nothing of making a Pig Latin musical in which Michelangelo is transported...
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1.4K
JORDAN, Neil
The controversial Irish firebrand. Roguish male punters should allude to the lasting impression made by an adolescent encounter with Danielle Dax in...
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1.3K
KUBRICK, Stanley
The middle-brow’s middle-brow. Always ‘that bearded recluse, the shy, indefatigable Stanley Kubrick’. Perennially mistreated by his countrymen, he sought refuge from the...
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1.3K
KUROSAWA, Akira
The doyen of disembowelment. A greater influence on Hollywood than Hitchcock and Truffaut combined. ‘He borrowed our mise-en-scene, now we’re borrowing it...
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1.3K
LANDIS, John
With The Blues Brothers, he took the one Saturday Night Live sketch with no discernible jokes, and turned it into a multi-million...
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1.3K
LEAN, David
Always ‘the Master’. Would think nothing of spending a fortnight on getting a three-second seascape shot just so. More fond of trains...
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1.4K
LESTER, Richard
A director from over there who did rather well over here. He brought speeded-up film back out of the silent age to...
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1.3K
LUCAS, George
A terrible waste of talent. ‘Ah, but though eighty percent of his oeuvre is undeniably formulaic pap, is he not Hollywood’s only...
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1.4K
LUMET, Sidney
The Dead End Kid who married Gloria Vanderbilt and never looked back. The actor’s director. A master technician, who thinks nothing of...
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1.4K
LYNCH, David
The wing-commander of weird. Never happier than when filming scenes of oxygen-fuelled rape, thuggish violence and steamy lesbo-dwarf sex, yet is physically...
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1.3K
MALICK, Terence
Cinema’s mysterious recluse. Makes just one film every 16 1/2 years, but every one is a masterpiece. For aesthetic reasons, only shoots...
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1.3K
MANN, Michael
The stylist’s stylist. Yet there’s so much more to his oeuvre than the rolled-up jacket sleeve and mirrored sunglass of popular cliché.
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1.4K
MEYER, Russ
While the Carry Ons, Confessions films et al are worthy only of pitying derision, the true film buff can find much to...
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1.5K
MULCAHY, Russell
He may have learnt his trade pointing a camera at Simon le Bon on an elephant, but that’s no reason to deny...
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1.3K
NICHOLS, Mike
The unsung artisan of American angst. In an article on visual style, mention ‘frames within frames’. His deft, peek-a-boo camerawork lent a...
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1.4K
PARKER, Alan
Scourge of the establishment. In a wry article for the Guardian Guide, always say ‘like his fictional comedic namesake, he’s still angry!’...
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1.4K
PASOLINI, Pier Paolo
He knew better than anyone the dark, perverted heart beating at the centre of the Catholic church. Mention that, despite the contents...
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