10- Christopher Nolan
Best Works: 'Memento', 'Dunkirk', 'The Dark Knight', 'The Prestige', 'Interstellar',
I regard the dynamic English emigre Christopher Nolan to be a superlative craftsman in the literal and figurative sense; not since James Cameron has there been a filmmaker in Hollywood who has devoted creativity and innovation in the service of cinema and storytelling. There is, however, a crucial difference in the methods adopted by these two men. While Cameron has spent years only on pondering and devising the future of filmmaking technology, Nolan's arduous effort and relentless insistence on the traditional tools of trade has made itself evident in his films which have reinvented the very ground rules of mainstream entertainment.
It would be, however, a crime to call them as only populist and big-studio works blessed with rare intelligence that is so lacking in this field today; Nolan's films are also blessed with a flawless understanding of human emotion and of big, weighty themes that are worth meditating over. The comparison that comes to the mind here is that with Stanley Kubrick, that legend who prized monumental ideas and subtext more than just the words of a bound script. But the younger writer-director has a visibly human touch to lend to his dazzling visual and aural window-dressing, as evident in the devastating wrangling of personal crime and consequences in his superior remake 'Insomnia', the overwhelming burden of loss and despair as in both 'Memento' and the superhero blockbuster 'The Dark Knight' or the sheer, crushing terror of the relentlessly possibility of death and disaster as in 'Dunkirk'.
As a modern-day entertainer, Nolan has my highest regard for the meticulous skill and ingenuity that he invests in developing both his narrative and his command of craft. 'Memento', with its fascinating backward and forwards twin narrative strands, stands out today as a seminal brainteaser made with intuitive skill; Nolan balances the manipulated precision of Leonard Shelby's quest for the man who killed his wife with the gritty grime of the ringside Americana around him, one of second-rate motels, seedy escort services and tattoo parlours, corrupt cops, a grubby femme fatale and more. 'The Dark Knight' stands out today as that rare film of the much-abused superhero genre that celebrates its hero's exploits to the hilt but also makes a case for a grounded sense of realism that resists the luxury of a celebratory ending. And in 'Interstellar', he proved that he could make a film about a desperate mission into space as monumental about an odyssey into every dimension, including the soul. Till date, blockbuster outings are trying to replicate that with no apparent success.
9- Francis Ford Coppola
Best Works: 'Apocalypse Now', 'The Godfather Part 2', 'The Godfather', 'The Conversation', 'Bram Stoker's Dracula'
It would be justified to say that the golden years of Francis Ford Coppola, one of the foremost directors of Hollywood's own New Wave in the 60s and 70s, are all over. Unlike a few of his established peers, Coppola could not just sustain the grand legacy that he himself carved for himself so early into the subsequent legacies. It is not as if the legend has not tried but could he ever replicate the quality of the four films that defined the decade of the 1970s?
That is, of course, not to diminish his own standing as a director who has tried to compensate for his own inability to match his exacting standards by experimenting a bit here and there and finding some snatches of success. Till date, however, Coppola enjoys comfortably that same early legacy that refuses to fade away. An already toasted screenwriter by the time he started directing films, a part of Coppola's impeccable craft in those unforgettable films stemmed from his understanding of the power of a strong narrative. And one of his greatest strengths was the fearless way in which he let the same take control.
Mario Puzo's original source novel had enough pulp in it to make for pure soap opera on the screen. But while the first film is where Coppola seems to be celebrating that very raw, rough-edged and undeniably ludicrous feel of Puzo's book (it is evident in the memorable set-pieces that litter the frames, like the head of the horse or the final parallel between baptism and bloodbath), he balances his own impulses in the sequel. 'The Godfather Part 2' stands in coldly cynical yet charmingly nostalgic contrast from the first film. In shuttling the focus from the innocence of Vito Corleone tainted with its inevitable loss to the gradual alienation of his son Michael from the very people who were once his family, Coppola explores the true devastation that a lifetime of crime and manipulation can wreak on the purity of soul.
My favourite has to be 'Apocalypse Now', a nightmarish, brooding yet ethereal and evocative gaze into the abyss of the Vietnam War. It left a lasting impression on me and I am not talking just about Coppola's brilliant, hypnotic handling of the emotional punch it delivers (has there been a scene as haunting as the one with that soldier named Roach?) or the nature of darkness (just listen to that monologue by Colonel Kurtz). It is also of the tremendous craft and excruciating effort that he poured into the project to make everything just as he wanted it to. From that hellish shoot in the Philippines to the final result, an operatic experience of the sheer anarchy of that suicidal war scored to both Wagner and The Doors, everything here was about a filmmaker wholly sure of his narrative and vision. Can we find that desperate ambition any more today?
8- Quentin Tarantino
Best Works: 'Pulp Fiction', 'Django Unchained', 'Inglourious Basterds', 'Kill Bill', 'Reservoir Dogs'
I would like to think that Quentin Tarantino, the director, would be nowhere as great without indispensable help from Quentin Tarantino, the writer. The differences within this man, the crowned hero of alternate cinema in Hollywood, are apparent for all to see. The director Tarantino is an impeccable and unmistakably stylish craftsman, a master at manipulating our primal emotions and eliciting our most enthusiastic wonder. But he feels too indebted to every other cinematic master out there, from the tongue-in-cheek swagger of Sergio Leone to the roaring use of music and anarchy of Martin Scorsese.
Now, it is when he brings alive, in his films, the writer Tarantino that the real miracles take place. That is why I would urge every film buff out there to read his meticulous, at times misspelt but magically entertaining scripts while they are watching his films. A Tarantino film without his typically punchy, pithy and powerful verbal fireworks is as incomplete as a Hitchcock film without an ice-blonde; they would lack the oomph which oozes so casually from them.
And yet it feels criminal to do disservice to the man's irresistible energy and spunk which erupts when he moves from his typewriter to behind the cameras. For all the cinematic and pop-culture tributes that he shows like a fervent fanboy, he is also a gifted stylist of the highest order. When he cuts his characters some slack and gets them talking about things that matter and not just their favourite films, songs or comic books, you can feel his talents come to the fore.
Violence is a key element of his work and while they can be essentially rollicking and sinfully entertaining feasts of blood and gore, one also has to admire Tarantino's sensitivity to button it down to realism when his camera gazes at slaves being whipped or fugitive Jews decimated without warning. Also, all of his films, even with the unsettling violence, are drenched in joyous celebration, the way Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega decide to shake their legs and hips after an uncomfortable conversation or the completely indulgent way in which Colonel Hans Landa chooses to drop his guard and allow himself a hearty laugh of disbelief.
That is then the wonderful thing about Tarantino, both a cheeky stylist playing jazzily with music and images and a writer who makes even the longest monologues sound like cinematic poetry. His films are deliciously fun, even when favouring fanboy worship over logic ('Kill Bill' is more gorgeously entertaining than any other action film, period) and yet he knows precisely when to make you drop your grin and sit on the edge of the seat with nervous fear, tinged with just the right touch of malicious humour. And that is a gift which even the other directors don't have.
7- Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin
Best Works: 'Modern Times', 'Circus', 'The Great Dictator', 'City Lights', 'The Kid'
There is a lot more to Charles Spencer Chaplin than just the Little Tramp. Admittedly, not all of it adds up really. His later phase is most anonymous bilge and his earliest films lack a bit of the finesse that he displayed usually. But he was also one of the first people who doubled up as both a splendid, timeless performer and a director who guided himself into films that are truly special in their simplicity and clarity, in their effervescent humour and their everlasting emotional impact.
But his single greatest masterstroke as a director, apart from that seamless blend of poignancy and split-second slapstick, has to be the everlasting disguise that he chose to gave himself. The Little Tramp, with his midget of a moustache, those perennially troubled eyes and those helplessly slippery mannerisms, looked nothing like the real Chaplin, a twinkle-eyed debonair and a Casanova to the bone. But even today, that wonderfully original creation feels incredibly more funny and heartfelt in his blunders than even the wide-eyed Buster Keaton or the cheeky sarcasm on the face of Groucho Marx, which John Lennon borrowed for his Sgt. Peppers' look.
As a pure craftsman, Chaplin was a defiant traditionalist; talkies were already being made when he chose to make two of his most acclaimed films with only music and sound effects. But that traditionalism had its advantage: it ensured that we could only enjoy the slapstick and subtle satire of the Little Tramp in sublime silence without dialogue to ruin the impact. And indeed, it would be impossible, even cringe-worthy to imagine the final scene of 'City Lights' or the Tramp's misadventures in his factory with even a single line of perfunctory dialogue. It would simply not have the magic.
In subsequent years, Chaplin's cinematic output has been considered as an ambiguous affair; while both 'Monsieur Verdoux' and 'The Great Dictator' revealed a wickedly cynical yet still impassioned side to his humour, I would not think too highly about the films at the wee end of his run ('A Countess From Hong Kong', anyone?). Yet, for all the wonders that he gave us, when orchestrating himself into those still crackling tropes or when he balanced hilarity with humanity, we cannot just thank him dearly enough. The world had been unfairly cruel to this spectacular entertainer whose only crime, as it seems, was to walk through his own sad life with that unforgettably quaint way in which he ambled through those streets as the Little Tramp.
6- Paul Thomas Anderson
Best Works: 'There Will Be Blood', 'Magnolia', 'The Master', 'Boogie Nights', 'Inherent Vice'
Many a modern-day filmmaker owes his or her inspiration to the great makers and films that came before them. But while they- and especially Tarantino- were busy watching the films that they had rented or bought, Paul Thomas Anderson was doing something else; he was also watching the director's commentary that came along in a DVD. That itself says a lot about just what makes Anderson so markedly different from the whole breed of new generation filmmakers. He does not just adore films. He adores the art of making them too.
And you can see that affection, that adoration for the format in almost all his films. Sometimes, that affection turns into something like a throbbing, impulsive love and then there is no holding back him. You could almost imagine that 'Boogie Nights', in its giddy, almost psychedelic yet crucially nuanced celebration of the seedy yet sizzling porn of the 1970s, is a reflection of his guilty adolescent love for those skin-flicks. Or when he made 'Magnolia', that extraordinary Biblical epic of a modern-day mosaic of despair, loneliness and chaos in Los Angeles and cast it fully with tales that featured extraordinary performances and searing storytelling, you can see all his besotted love for the cinema of Robert Altman.
Similarly, that love goes beyond just the craft or the format; it also extends to the admirable way in which he handles his actors. This is the man who made half a dozen different Hollywood performers of varying levels of skill and pedigree turn out their best and that includes a wide spectrum of talent, from the seasoned pros like Daniel Day-Lewis, Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman to handsome studs Tom Cruise and Burt Reynolds to even the much-lambasted Adam Sandler. And the women in his films are just as phenomenal, from Julianne Moore's desperately guilt-ridden wife in 'Magnolia' to Amy Adams as a wife who leads the leader in 'The Master'.
With time, Anderson has confessed to a self-conscious shift in his style, from the Altman-referencing ensemble casts to an intimate focus on the perspective of the world by an individual protagonist. His films have also started speaking volumes, of matters that most of his contemporaries are afraid of. The oil in 'There Will Be Blood' is a pitch-black canvas of the beginning of capitalism, the cult of the Cause in 'The Master' is our placebo of self-deception against disillusionment. Yet, all that stays beneath the alluring, stunning surface for Anderson has a natural gift for making his stories look as absorbing as the subtext that they carry. Not for nothing did Thomas Pynchon trust him, out of every director out there, to adapt his untameable genius for the screen.
5- Stanley Kubrick
Best Works: 'Dr. Strangelove', 'A Clockwork Orange', 'The Shining', '2001: A Space Odyssey', 'Barry Lyndon'
I confess: I was no admirer of Stanley Kubrick about some years ago. Oh, I admired his marvellous technique, his obsession with filming and directing that resulted in jaw-dropping perfection and the way he could make the most unlikely performers bring out uncanny thespian skills. But when it came to his films, they felt cold, manipulative and emotionally vacant. Sure, they had brilliant, subversive ideas, like the open-ended climax of '2001' and brilliant cynicism to go along with them, like the inevitable climax of nuclear apocalypse in 'Dr. Strangelove'. But were they, except for that bruising and bitter Cold War satire, even remotely enjoyable?
Then, when I watched 'The Shining', my mind was blown. It was nothing else than a Stephen King book which did not need to be subversive or out-of-the-box. But Kubrick took the material in his hands and turned it into a bona fide horror masterpiece. Not only did he do complete justice to the unrelenting dread and unsettling gore in the novel; he also gave the whole material the unmistakable touch of a true artist. The film is as much an example in radical photography techniques as much as in concealing vital subtext within the more obvious surface of the main narrative and it paved the way forward for the genre of 'intelligent' thriller. You can almost imagine David Lynch and Paul Thomas Anderson taking down notes.
There is this incredible thing about Kubrick: his inimitable skill in adapting brilliantly even the most difficult books out there. And I am also talking about the limits to which he went for absolute loyalty; which other director would have embraced the risk of adapting the whole of Nadsat as the main language in the film adaptation of 'A Clockwork Orange'? Most directors would have balked at the idea of alienating their audiences but Kubrick, brilliant old Kubrick, trusted that his viewers are not just casual audiences but rather Burgess purists who would come to his film having already read up the whole dictionary.
That is defiant, almost rebellious confidence. Kubrick worked for mainstream films in his early years but after one of his own actors, Kirk Douglas, tried to wrest creative control from him, the result was something unexpected. The filmmaker withdrew from filthy rich Hollywood and instead migrated to Britain, where his ideas and intellect got a more warm reception. And studios warmed up, after a time, to the man's tremendous talent; they could not do without him after all.
But for all the painstaking effort, pioneering technique, domineering creative control and even those reportedly tiresome shoots for many of his actors, there is another side to this unbridled genius. He might have been a craftsman but he was also a thinker, a man with unexpected layers of brilliant wit and perception, a man who helped to shape his own film's novelisation into one of the finest science fiction books itself and a man capable of giving his audiences always something unforgettable.
4- Alfred Hitchcock
Best Works: 'Psycho', 'North By Northwest', 'Strangers On A Train', 'Vertigo', 'The Birds'
If somebody had asked me of what would be my favourite caper, I would have named 'North By Northwest' and that would even outrank any single James Bond film from the 60s or even the films of Steven Soderbergh and Vijay Anand. If somebody had asked me, then, about my favourite comedy, I would have given the same answer and that would be above any romp by Charlie Chaplin. If somebody would ask me of one single action scene that changed the rules of the game of cinema, I would name the crop duster scene from the same film.
Even a single film by Alfred Hitchcock, the quaintly old-fashioned Englishman with a sly, almost wicked wit, is still capable of being seminal and path-breaking in every single aspect. Other directors in this list are exceptional storytellers, people who can tell oft-told tales in their own style and cinematic language. Hitchcock was above them in this all-important regard: he did not just tell great tales, he invented the very elements that they were made of.
And that judgment comes even as I have hitherto sampled only his tightest and most enthralling thrillers when his career is inevitably studded with a lot more surprises and genuinely sensational inventions to be discovered. His early British thrillers exploded on the screen when Americans were still reading Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler mysteries; his adaptation of 'The 39 Steps' is considered as more of a classic entertainer than the book itself. His spy thrillers feel to have been crafted on a heady diet of Eric Ambler and John Buchan and yet there is always a pivotal difference. Those writers explored the seriousness of the task ahead while Hitchcock always thought of it as a rollicking ride with enough room for a stunning action scene or cheeky humour in between.
At the same time, he could also be critical of his own standards and did his utmost best to improve as much as he could. 'North By Northwest' might be the most entertaining of his 'wrong man' tropes but he also explored the same with a sobering angle in 'The Wrong Man', proving himself at a master at portraying the pathos of the situation. His remake of 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' is hailed as superior by many, including Francois Truffaut, and the evidence lies in the unexpected tropes that he invented, from that well-detailed and cliche-free Moroccan setting to the use of Doris Day's voice as background score to that suspenseful climax.
Hitchcock was also a brilliant visual artist. Those black umbrellas in the rain in 'Foreign Correspondent', the contrast between trousers in the opening of 'Strangers On A Train', the murder of crows in 'The Birds', a lady's handbag in 'Marnie', the voluptuous dancer in the window in 'Rear Window' and, of course, the stuffed birds in 'Psycho'. Hitchcock showed them all because for him, everything was important. And we could not help but agree.
3- Steven Spielberg
Best Works: 'Schindler's List', 'Jaws', 'Raiders Of The Lost Ark', 'Munich', 'Duel'
Steven Spielberg helped me to grow up.
I was 14 years old, not at all aware about the wealth of mature, intelligent cinema and content with watching only trashy science-fiction films that we schoolboys used to rave about. Then, one day, my cousin brother gifted me a VCD of 'Schindler's List', a film by Steven Spielberg, who also happens to be a great science-fiction director himself. I watched it one afternoon after returning home from my year-end exams and was transformed. The horrors of the Holocaust, that despicable genocide of Jews perpetrated by the Nazis, had been described to me by my father but 'Schindler's List' did something more: it plunged me into those horrors and then offered an illuminating ray of hope and showed me, shaken and stunned, the power of that elusive thing.
In a nutshell, it made me come of age. I was no longer just a boy after watching it.
It is easy to say, what with all those record-smashing blockbusters, multi-million dollar franchises and even those not-so-perfect sequels, that Spielberg is just a big-ticket entertainer. In fact, he is one of our most seasoned, mature and perceptive storytellers, a director who has the command of craft worthy of Kubrick, the sly wit and perception of Hitchcock and yet an additional element of one able to arouse the deepest, most unknown emotions of his audience.
A lot of his signature films, while being incredible well-crafted and effortlessly gripping, do not get their due for being so astute and mature in their stance. I have heard many saying that 'Saving Private Ryan' does not explore the other side of the Normandy landings; what they are missing is just how powerfully that film explores the real emotional and personal toll that the senseless of war, of even a single mission, can take on soldiers. Similarly, a common complaint for 'Munich' is of Spielberg's controversial equation of sexuality and factual violence but what few notice is the bravely objective stance that he adopts between the hapless Palestinian recruits and the Israel-backed killers without ever resorting to sides.
Intelligence is something that defines Spielberg's films, showing up in the admirable loyal way in which he completed Kubrick's pet project 'Artificial Intelligence' to deliver the same intellectual impact as intended. Or even in the smallest of all creative decisions, like filming Herge's 'Tintin' comics in motion-capture and animation that does them adequate justice or the way he uses John Williams. At the same time, Spielberg followed his heart just like a winsome boy, a Peter Pan who never wished to grow up. It is this hearty goodness that still remains even in his weakest films.
And he has helped my father rediscover his boyhood. With a series of films about a hero with a fedora and a bullwhip. Now that is pure magic.
2- David Lynch
Best Works: 'Mulholland Drive', 'The Elephant Man', 'Eraserhead', 'Inland Empire', 'Lost Highway'
There is a reason why I am ranking David Lynch higher than even grand entertainers Spielberg, Hitchcock and Nolan and that impeccable craftsman Kubrick. In their inclination to try and decipher the beautifully baffling layers of narrative and allusions in his non-linear films, people end up forgetting the greatest and most underrated gift of David Lynch. He is one filmmaker who can produce sights, sounds and sensations unlike anything ever seen in cinema. Even if you cannot make sense of what does the 'blue box' mean or what tricks the Man In The Planet is up to or what do those laconic rabbits talk about, you will still be unable to take your eyes away. The mood, the atmosphere of dread meshed with daft comedy, of eroticism and decay, of rough edges and smooth textures, of grotesque faces and gorgeous red lips are enough to take your breath away.
And let's not even discuss just how underrated his talents as a literal crafter of the most sublime and stirring moments are. I find myself devastated every time I watch that scene in which the disfigured yet noble-hearted John Merrick (a phenomenal John Hurt) bares his heart in the most subtly poetic and moving way ever in front of Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins) and his wife over a cup of tea. There is no melodrama for display here, just a son wondering whether he lived up to his mother's expectations or not.
Likewise, there is a lot more to Lynch's cinema than is apparent. Most people judge him only from the elaborate and dazzling complexity of his works but like in the case of Thomas Pynchon, that is missing the woods for the trees. Like that famously reclusive author, Lynch is a surprisingly tender and passionate storyteller unlike any other around him. For all the brilliant, scathing cynicism in his mystery thrillers, he is also both an incendiary sensualist and a firebrand romantic at heart. 'Wild At Heart' is flushed with his trademark surrealism and sexual fireworks but it also has one of the most spectacularly candy-floss climaxes ever seen in any romance. Similarly, he could make the most raunchy sleaze look like pure art dripping with our most sinful eroticism. Just watch 'Lost Highway'.
He is also possibly the only living Hollywood filmmaker who has the gift of being an astute thinker on the world around him. And indeed, those painstaking theories conjured by his lovers reveal just how much thought, imagination and emotion go into his process, from the contrast between makeup on faces to the ethereal silence or song needed to make an emotional moment so phenomenal. But then, that is the thing about David Lynch. Of all the great directors mentioned in this list, he is the one who never ceases to thrill, surprise and amaze you. Even if it is only with a hapless man with bizarre hair.
1- Martin Scorsese
Best Works: 'Goodfellas', 'Taxi Driver', 'Raging Bull', 'The Departed', 'Hugo'
I was fifteen years old when I fell in love with Martin Scorsese.
Or, to be precise, with his cinema.
I remember watching 'Taxi Driver' on a rainy night in June after returning from my evening tuitions and found myself blown. I was raving about the film for almost a month, was repeating the 'You talking to me?' scene in my time alone and when I could not resist it any longer, I had to buy the VCD. That was the undeniable impression of pure, unadulterated brilliance that 'Taxi Driver', a film about its titular character's deliberate decline into loneliness, alienation and misguided psychosis, had left on my mind, a film which literally made me see the world with eyes wide open.
That was the undeniable punch of Scorsese' cinema. And I cannot forget that even now.
Others, from fellow cinephiles to critics and commentators, might have already given their reasons for hailing Martin Scorsese the rightful king of modern and classic cinema but I would just like to add my own personal, purely indulgent reasons to the same list. For me, Scorsese is not just a Hollywood icon, even with his oeuvre lasting for the last five decades and spanning whole generations of movie-goers and enthralling all of them in unexpected ways.
For me, he is nothing less than one of the most relentless, enlightening and extraordinary artists of all time.
Films that stand out so distinguished in a vast career of mostly incredible works are those which cannot be appraised in their technical, narrative or histrionic aspects; they can only be measured in their impact and perfection. His mastery of gangster dramas is unrivalled even today and even as 'The Godfather' might steal every top spot in the best-of lists, everyone can agree that 'Goodfellas', with its bruising humour, roaring music, razor-sharp storytelling and, yes, that smashingly fluid camerawork, can be called as the definitive story of a life of crime. Take that, Coppola.
And yet, Scorsese was not just a chronicler of crime or just a teller gifted in serving up the seamiest sides of humanity on display. His scathing and honest portrayal of the darkness and demons that plague us all were never exploitative; rather, they were poetic, poignant and powerfully emotional. Has cinema ever seen a scene as heart-breaking as the one in which Jake LaMotta, now defeated on every front and no longer the brute who took down both boxing opponents and his own loved ones, cries aloud in despair alone in his cell? I dare you to find at least one scene as moving as that one.
Scorsese loved his characters, even the most venal and evil of them. He could lend dignity to a terrifying brute like Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting and he could lend teary-eyed sympathy to the death of a wild criminal like Tommy DeVito. Likewise, the people in his films were not just flawed or bad men; they could also be heroes, either wonderfully plucky and adventurous (from Howard Hughes to Hugo Cabaret) to honest, soft-spoken men defeated or belittled by harsh circumstances. That is what all those fascinating films are about: not about evil but rather about the inevitability of the collapse of goodness and of dreams.
As he strutted (and continues to strut) in different genres, telling us a spectacular period romance in one film and meditating on religion in another, Scorsese proved that he could do anything, even documentaries on vintage rock legends and restoring classics from across the world, without a single misstep. And he could also be a great person whilst delivering his masterstrokes. For indeed, it has to be a director of exceptional grace and humility to have allowed the greatest ad-libbed scene to have taken place.
