1957 Oscar Viewing Project

One of the biggest regrets I had with finishing the blog was that I wasn't going to do one last season of ballots for the OVP.  The series that basically started this blog was going to get ignored, and while I cheated a bit by having the Halloween blogathon serve as a "placeholder" for the Oscar Viewing Project goodbye, that wasn't enough.  I'll be honest-October has been really challenging on a personal level (one of the main reasons that I'm ending the blog is because I had a wake up call about my personal life), but I have pushed myself in the past couple of days to finish the four remaining films I hadn't completed from 1957 so that they were done, and I can officially unveil the 27th completed season of the series (a truncated version, as I didn't have the bandwidth to write a full twenty articles, but at least I got something!).  For those who have enjoyed this (including me), I want you to know that I have started to transpose all of the previous OVP winners from past seasons onto my Letterboxd lists, and will continue to do the winners on there going forward, so if you want to continue to see what I'm picking (I'm ending the blog-the Oscar Viewing Project continues to see another day), you can find me here.  My brother is trying to help me figure out the best way to present the My Ballots (I didn't have time to finish that for 1957), but I promise as soon as he figures out a way to do this (he's better at such things than I am), I will continue posting those on Letterboxd as well.  But below, you will find the ranked from first-to-last choices for the 30th Academy Awards.

That's enough shop talk.  Now it's time to go back to an era of Sputnik & the Little Rock Nine, of Althea Gibson & Mamie Eisenhower.  And of course, let's remember the movies...

Picture

1. The Bridge on the River Kwai

2. Witness for the Prosecution

3. 12 Angry Men

4. Sayonara

5. Peyton Place

The Lowdown: The Bridge on the River Kwai has been a part of my life since I can't remember when-it was my grandfather's favorite movie, and one that played in the background (along with Patton and Tora! Tora! Tora!) on repeat after he had a stroke.  The only one of these movies that really approaches its grandeur is Witness for the Prosecution, which honestly is kind of a miracle and the best Christie adaptation I've ever seen.  12 Angry Men is very well-done, and a masterpiece but one that might (unfairly) have lost some luster it's been done so much since, and the other two are handsome-but-dull (Sayonara) or a total snooze (Peyton Place).

Director

1. David Lean (The Bridge on the River Kwai)

2. Billy Wilder (Witness for the Prosecution)

3. Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men)

4. Joshua Logan (Sayonara)

5. Mark Robson (Peyton Place)

The Lowdown: Even more than the Best Picture field (if you hadn't noticed, these are carbon copies of each other), David Lean takes the lead here.  Oscar Winner Sydney Pollack once said that a director's job is "less artist, more damage containment expert" and that might be what is drawing me to Lean to a degree.  He has the more challenging job, particularly given that Wilder & Lumet are largely staying in the same locations, and are bringing to life staged plays, but it's more than that.  Think of the ending of The Bridge on the River Kwai, having so many storylines come together with staggering precision-you only get that from thinking meticulously, even in a gigantic epic.

Actor

1. Alec Guinness (The Bridge on the River Kwai)

2. Charles Laughton (Witness for the Prosecution)

3. Anthony Franciosa (A Hatful of Rain)

4. Marlon Brando (Sayonara)

5. Anthony Quinn (Wild is the Wind)

The Lowdown: This is entirely down to the British actors (Guinness & Laughton).  Franciosa (who is in lead, Shelley Winters' memory be damned), gives a good performance but is in an underwritten movie, while Brando is a fabulous actor in a stuffed shirt sort of role.  Guinness gets my vote over Laughton primarily because he's playing so specifically to this character.  Laughton's role is appropriately loud-and-boisterous, he's typecast but in the best way possible.  Guinness isn't initially who I would guess in 1957 for this role (he was better known for comic work in movies before this), but that works to his advantage as Colonel Nicholson is a man obsessed, whose madness toward the end as he realizes what he's done is a crucial component to the entirety of Lean's epic.

Actress

1. Anna Magnani (Wild is the Wind)

2. Joanne Woodward (The Three Faces of Eve)

3. Deborah Kerr (Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison)

4. Elizabeth Taylor (Raintree County)

5. Lana Turner (Peyton Place)

The Lowdown: Here's where I'm going to confess something-I have never gotten the hype around Joanne Woodward's performance in The Three Faces of Eve.  I think part of why she got this award (and so many plaudits since) is because it was such a revolutionary idea onscreen-a woman playing three characters in one.  But it isn't as impressive as some of her peers were, and while Woodward is a good actress, this isn't her best work, and she's only as high as she is on this list because this is a weak field.  Magnani stands out more for me-she's a more obvious actor compared to the organic Woodward, but the way she plays this woman is so three-dimensional and felt.  I love it.  Kerr is lovely-but-not-stretched in Heaven Knows, while Taylor & Turner both have their best (sultriest) instinct muted in their dull pictures.

Supporting Actor

1. Sessue Hayakawa (The Bridge on the River Kwai)

2. Red Buttons (Sayonara)

3. Russ Tamblyn (Peyton Place)

4. Arthur Kennedy (Peyton Place)

5. Vittorio de Sica (A Farewell to Arms)

The Lowdown: Hayakawa, at one point a major leading star of the Silent Era, made a comeback with this role very late in his career, and it's easily the best of this quintet.  The way that his Colonel Saito creates a humanizing aspect to his villain is years ahead of what you'd normally expect from such a part, and stands up against what Guinness & Holden are doing.  Buttons' heartbreaking work is a worthy runner-up, and I like that Russ Tamblyn got a nomination here (he's my favorite part of Peyton Place), but Hayakawa is the best choice of the bunch.

Supporting Actress

1. Elsa Lanchester (Witness for the Prosecution)

2. Miyoshi Umeki (Sayonara)

3. Carolyn Jones (The Bachelor Party)

4. Hope Lange (Peyton Place)

5. Diane Varsi (Peyton Place)

The Lowdown: Man is this a rough one.  Given 3/5 of these are in movies that underwhelmed me already, and The Bachelor Party is just an odd picture, thank the lord for Elsa Lanchester.  Her doddering in Witness for the Prosecution is marvelous, and would've made a fine winner (I would've found room for her costar Una O'Connor, and will in my My Ballot).  The rest, though, are uninspired in a field that could've been great had they invested more in musicals in 1957.  Umeki's groundbreaking win isn't the worst thing to happen to this category (there's an understanding in her work that I liked), and seeing Carolyn Jones outside of the Addams mansion is a change of pace, but man...Lanchester is the only truly acceptable winner of the bunch.

Original Screenplay

1. Funny Face

2. The Tin Star

3. I Vitelloni

4. Designing Woman

5. Man of a Thousand Faces

The Lowdown: It's weird, given the weak point of most of Fred Astaire's films is a cobbled together by scotch tape plot, that I'm giving his film this statue.  In a perfect world, you'd probably see a few of the Foreign Language Film nominees included in this lineup, but the only subtitled film of this bunch is Federico Fellini's I Vitelloni, where the screenplay is one of the weakest parts in an otherwise really attractive movie.  Funny Face is well-structured, and if you get past the fact that the 30-year age difference should be more of a plot point (let's be real, though, Fred Astaire & Audrey Hepburn are such ageless figures it's hard to think of them as anything more than ephemeral tricks-of-the-light), the only movie that comes close is The Tin Star, a well-structured morality tale that's admittedly a bit predictable and guided by strong work from Henry Fonda & Anthony Perkins.

Adapted Screenplay

1. The Bridge on the River Kwai

2. 12 Angry Men

3. Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison

4. Sayonara

5. Peyton Place

The Lowdown: The real battle here is between The Bridge on the River Kwai and 12 Angry Men, both impeccable screenplays.  12 Angry Men it's sometimes hard for me to tell if I should dock points for it clearly being a filmed play or if that works onscreen.  Since I can never quite tell, I'm going to go with Bridge, which has a stronger end game, and also manages to tell a lot of subplots without losing focus (harder than it sounds).  Kudos to Heaven Knows in third, particularly in the way that it handles the complicated (for 1957) romantic angles of the story that otherwise could've been abandoned by a different writer.

Foreign Language Film

1. Nights of Cabiria (Italy)

2. Gates of Paris (France)

3. The Devil Strikes at Night (Germany)

4. Nine Lives (Norway)

5. Mother India (India)

The Lowdown: In the early years of this category, you'd get masterpieces from renowned filmmakers like Fellini, which makes it really hard to judge in some ways because how do you compete with something like Nights of Cabiria, one of the all-time great pictures and featuring a beautiful performance from Giuletta Massini?  It's a pity, though, as there's some treasure trove films here too.  Gates of Paris is a wonderfully dark French crime film (with a romantic subplot that'll rip your heart out), while The Devil Strikes at Night gives you a really strong look at the rise of fascism from a film noir perspective. The only one of the bunch I couldn't get into was the unfathomably long Mother India, a well-regarded Bollywood picture that was at least two hours too long.

Score

1. The Bridge on the River Kwai

2. An Affair to Remember

3. Raintree County

4. Boy on a Dolphin

5. Perri

The Lowdown: Any of the Top 3 here would be a worthy prize (Boy on the Dolphin feels like it got nominated based on the composer, and Perri ranks as one of the sillier films to ever be cited for an Academy Award since it's just a children's nature documentary about a squirrel).  Even with the most famous cut of the score being a non-original piece (the "Colonel Bogey's March" is not original to the picture), I think that Bridge does the most with its music, and it will get my nod.  Either Affair or Raintree would make good choices, though, both of them lush & filled with a lot of romance (I'm still finalizing my My Ballot Awards, as I mentioned above, but as of this writing all three of these films would make my nominees).

Original Song

1. "Wild is the Wind" (Wild is the Wind)

2. "All the Way," (The Joker is Wild)

3. "An Affair to Remember," (An Affair to Remember)

4. "Tammy," (Tammy and the Bachelor)

5. "April Love," (April Love)

The Lowdown: A genuinely terrific group of songs-there's not a bad one in the bunch, and in many cases, we're getting some big-deal singers' signature tunes.  The Top 3, in particular, is pretty immovable, and my pick of "Wild is the Wind" might be a little cheat given my favorite version of the song is by Nina Simone (not, as sung in the movie, by Johnny Mathis, though Mathis is also marvelous).  It's such a creepy love ballad.  Sinatra's classic "All the Way" and Marni Nixon belting out the standard "An Affair to Remember" (through Deborah Kerr) are totally acceptable answers here too, though.

Sound

1. Pal Joey

2. Witness for the Prosecution

3. Sayonara

4. Les Girls

5. Gunfight at the OK Corral

The Lowdown: I will be honest-every single one of these films will be getting replaced when I do my My Ballot.  That's not to say there isn't good stuff happening (Pal Joey has some solid musical numbers and the dialogue is crisp, Witness has the great final courtroom scene & Marlene singing), but nothing here stands out in a big way.  The shootout in Gunfight, for example, is a disappointment (the best part of it is the Frankie Lane title song), and Les Girls is a great movie, but not one that has a lot of super memorable musical numbers (it works better on its plot).  The Bridge on the River Kwai is clearly missing.

Art Direction

1. Les Girls

2. Funny Face

3. Raintree County

4. Sayonara

5. Pal Joey

The Lowdown: Gorgeous sets abound here, but in particular for the Top 2 (in another year Raintree County's elaborate and epic southern looks would be a serious contender for the win, here it has to settle for the bronze).  I'm going to go with Les Girls for the statue because it plays more with the beautiful looks of Paris than Funny Face does, and the sets have a bit more color and personality, but honestly they're both so good this is splitting hairs.

Cinematography

1. Funny Face

2. An Affair to Remember

3. The Bridge on the River Kwai

4. Sayonara

5. Peyton Place

The Lowdown: This one comes down to the romances for me-this is the one area where I think Bridge is good but isn't necessarily breaking the bank except for the final sequence, and so I'd put this between Affair and Funny Face.  Funny Face probably benefits a bit from its plot-there film is literally about catching the exact right photo of Audrey Hepburn, and you get gorgeous scenes and fashion shots of her to accompany that.  I do like the intercontinental glamour and radiant CinemaScope beauty of An Affair to Remember, but if forced to pick, I'd end with Funny Face.

Costume Design

1. Funny Face

2. Les Girls

3. Raintree County

4. An Affair to Remember

5. Pal Joey

The Lowdown: With costume design, sometimes you get contests where you were never going to win.  There are really good nominees in this category (for my money, the best lineup Oscar pulled together in 1957), and some are extraordinary.  That exquisite orange & white dress Deborah Kerr wears in An Affair to Remember, the plunging bodices sported by a never-more-beautiful Elizabeth Taylor in Raintree County, the monochromatic swimsuits & matching chapeaus of Les Girls...all grand.  But when Audrey Hepburn in a strapless scarlet dress & matching scarf walks down the steps of the Louvre in Funny Face...that's what makes movies, movies-it simply has to win.

Film Editing

1. The Bridge on the River Kwai

2. Witness for the Prosecution

3. Gunfight at the OK Corral

4. Pal Joey

5. Sayonara

The Lowdown: I feel like too many of these categories are Bridge on the River Kwai facing off against Witness for the Prosecution with the latter coming up short.  This is true here, even though it's close-Bridge sometimes sags in the middle (maybe its weakest aspect even if the beginning and end are so well-conceived), and you can't deny that Witness builds its tension masterfully.  Still, the ending of Bridge is just too good to ignore, and neither Marlene Dietrich or Dennis Hopper's very effective final scene in Gunfight at the OK Corral can really compete with it.

Special Effects

1. The Spirit of St. Louis

2. The Enemy Below

The Lowdown: Our only category with only two nominees in the bunch, this is a battle between two war pictures.  The Spirit of St. Louis is really impressive when you keep in mind this is a special effects category, and so therefore the plane stunt effects and trick flying should be part of your calculation.  It helps that Jimmy Stewart was a pilot in WWII and actually knows what he was doing.  The Enemy Below is both a lesser movie, and honestly has lesser effects by comparison (Lindbergh gets my win).  It's not bad-the water effects toward the end all are strong & believable in a world without CGI, but it's nothing you wouldn't see in a dozen other war films of the era.

Top 10 Films of 2023 (that aren't from 2023)

We are officially unveiling today all of our Top 10's for 2023, and while later today we will share out the Top 10 films that were actually released in 2023, this is a blog that centers on classic cinema, and it's never "just" the year at-hand-we're always plumbing over a century of movies.  So we're going to start first with the Top 10 films I saw for the first time in 2023 before we get into my actual Top 10 of 2023.  Please enjoy, and share your favorite first-time experiences in the comments (all titles listed alphabetically)!

Diary of a Country Priest (1951)

dir. Robert Bresson

A fascinating look at the way faith can consume us if we let it, to the point where we stop living our own lives and can't find order without making it align to our worldview.  Claude Laydu gives an astonishing performance as the anguished priest, one that has to be seen to be believed.

Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

dir. Louis Malle

Perfectly-constructed film noir, aided in large part by Jeanne Moreau giving a world-class performance that would make her an international icon.  The way that Malle lenses her is ingenious, always using onscreen light sources to highlight that beautiful, melancholy face.

A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

dir. Sergio Leone

In the year of the western on the blog, while I saw a lot of terrific movies, it feels a bit cheater-y to give the next three slots highlighting the only westerns on this list, all from the same trilogy.  But it cannot be denied that this lives up to the hype, starting out with a wonderful spin on what would be the classic "Man with No Name" trope from Clint Eastwood.

For a Few Dollars More (1965)

dir. Sergio Leone

Armed with a stronger budget, Leone makes sure his follow-up uses every dollar on the accounting sheet, giving us a growing set design, and more intentional cinematography (which was already pretty darn great).  Lee van Cleef getting added alongside Eastwood is a strong twist on the original's formula.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)

dir. Sergio Leone

The third film wraps it all up with a true sense of the word "epic."  Eastwood, van Cleef, and now Eli Wallach create a glorious trio, and Ennio Morricone, already batting a thousand with this series, brings one of the best scores he ever wrote (and that's saying something).  The final hour is about as good as a movie can get.

In the Mood for Love (2000)

dir. Wong Kar-Wai

One of the sexiest films I've ever seen, In the Mood for Love looks wonderful in every frame.  The way that the art direction, costuming, and the glowing candlelit cinematography add to the forbidden nature of the two title lovers is grand, but Cheung and especially Leung sell it throughout, an absolute electric sexual tension that recalls something like Lauren Bacall walking onto the screen in To Have and Have Not.

Paranormal Activity (2009)

dir. Oren Peli

An impossible level of tension emerges from this film, one that would launch a ton of pretenders, but that doesn't deter how truly scary the first film is.  I loved the way that, for a film criticized for too many jump scares, that's not really the case-much of it just comes from finding the changes, searching in the silence...until we realize there's a reason to be scared of the dark.

Summertime (1955)

dir. David Lean

Maybe the most narcissistic choice on this list (I, too, am a bit of a spinster who loves to travel & maybe in 2023 gave up a little bit on love being the end of my story), but that doesn't deter that Summertime is a grand, marvelous spiritual sequel to Brief Encounter.  I don't know that I've ever seen Hepburn so raw, using her persona against a gorgeous 1950's Venice to craft her best dramatic performance...ever?

The Virgin Suicides (2000)

dir. Sofia Coppola

I love the way that Coppola's debut plays with form & expectations.  We're meant to assume that this is a coming-of-age story, one where the boys will find their own journey through the introspective girls they see across the street.  What it becomes is a mystery, and how our own lore becomes an enigma as we grow up, realizing how much of life, even our own, we can't understand.

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

dir. Billy Wilder

Absolutely sensational treatment, a riveting courtroom drama brimming with all of the delicious intrigue that you'd expect from Agatha Christie.  Charles Laughton, Elsa Lancaster, Una O'Connor, they're all grand in this, but it's Marlene Dietrich (robbed of an Oscar) who makes it truly unforgettable.

OVP: Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Film: Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Stars: Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Jack Hawkins, Omar Sharif, Jose Ferrer, Anthony Quayle, Arthur Kennedy
Director: David Lean
Oscar History: 10 nods/7 wins (Best Picture*, Director*, Actor-Peter O'Toole, Supporting Actor-Omar Sharif, Adapted Screenplay*, Original Score*, Cinematography*, Art Direction*, Film Editing*, Sound)
(Not So) Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

In college, I majored in Film History, and in order to graduate with honors, I had to do a thesis paper that literally constituted one year of my life focused on the transition period from Classical Hollywood to New Hollywood cinema.  While I saw dozens of films for the project (in fact, that's the reason I started to subscribe to Netflix in the first place), the central thesis of the paper was focused on four movies: The Graduate, Bonnie & Clyde, The Manchurian Candidate and (in particular) Lawrence of Arabia.  I'm not going to get into the why's and how's of what I argued about these films (if you're curious, go into the comments or slip into my Twitter DM's and I'll share), but suffice it to say I know these movies very, very well, and Lawrence has remained a part of my life ever since in large part because I spent a year focusing on every minute detail of the film, because while I compared the 1962 classic to the three other pictures, it was Lawrence that was the guts of my argument.  So engrained is the film into my psyche, that when I made my bucket list at the age of 25, I only included one "see X film on the big screen" as a requisite for the list, and that was the tale of a complicated World War I colonel.  Thanks to TCM, I got to make this dream a reality last Sunday, and while I've written literally 100 pages worth of thoughts on the film, I haven't shared any of them on this blog, so let's get a review out there for posterity, shall we?

(Spoilers Ahead...though seriously-you've never seen Lawrence of Arabia?) The film is 220 minutes long, so trying to summarize it into one paragraph as explanation feels to do it a disservice.  Suffice it to say the film is told in flashback (though it's one extended flashback, so you'd be forgiven for forgetting such a framing device) as we see in the opening moments that a seemingly ordinary man on a morning drive on his motorcycle has been killed, and then suddenly we're at St. Paul's Cathedral, where the man is storied enough to have a bust of him in a place where he literally sits on the ashes of kings.  We learn that Lawrence was a complicated man, as even those who knew him don't really have a way to explain him, and then we are transported into the life of TE Lawrence, as played by a young, beautiful Peter O'Toole.

The film is considered one of the quintessential, undisputed classics of Hollywood cinema for a reason-literally everything works in Lawrence of Arabia, and particularly on the big screen (just an FYI-you can totally see this on Wednesday still in select theaters, and while this isn't a paid plug at all, here's a Fathom Events link if you're interested as I am always willing to shill for a movie this good). The score, sets, cinematography-it's all marvelous.  Freddie Young won one of his three Oscars for lensing this movie, and it shows in the care he brings to the big screen.  The deserts look scorched, blistering in the sun, and he has a remarkable expertise not only with a wide shot, but with the occasional closeup of O'Toole or Omar Sharif's Ali.  The editing is flawless-Anne Coates (who recently died) finds little New Hollywood touches to put into a classic film like Lawrence; look at the way that instead of having an Old Hollywood dissolve between scenes she copies the French New Wave with quick, abrasive cuts between critical scenes, underlining the continued madness of Lawrence, especially in the second half of the film where he's forced to confront his narcissism, latent homosexuality, and bloodlust to varying degrees of failure.  From a sheer craft perspective, the movie rivals pictures like Gone with the Wind and Titanic in getting everything right-few films look as good on all cylinders as Lawrence of Arabia; it's not often that a movie gets ten Oscar nominations and you argue it's too few, but Lawrence gets there (it easily could have gotten an 11th nomination, but if legend is to be believed Phyllis Dalton wasn't submitted by the studio for Costume, and therefore missed out on a certain Oscar).

When an epic is this hot, it's easy to forget the acting, but that would be an insult.  The cast list (all men-Lawrence famously doesn't have any speaking parts for women, who only show up in the occasional crowd scene), reads like a who's who of character actors of the era.  Sharif was the one who won the Oscar nomination for Supporting Actor, and if they were only going to go with one that's probably the right call (Sharif is breathtakingly noble, striking & debonair but never someone who isn't believable as Lawrence's struggling conscience), but you have a smorgasbord of other great turns here.  There's Alec Guinness (in problematic brown face, so the fact that he wasn't cited might be for the best), charming as ever as Prince Faisal, or Anthony Quinn's proud Auda, struggling with modernity.  Even small parts like Jack Hawkins' General Allenby, Jose Ferrer's predatory Turkish Bey, and Claude Rains' glib Mr. Dryden make the film work-this is an epic movie with the casting care of a stage play, every part meticulously fitting to its inhabitant.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the onscreen marvel of Peter O'Toole's Lawrence.  O'Toole is one of the great actors of his generation, but he was never better than in his breakout role.  He instills layers of the character with the mannered walk and sky-blue eyes (you don't need to stretch the imagination to realize that this man was both gay and probably into some kinky shit, as is evidenced by real-life...even though in 1962 showing such a thing would've been impossible onscreen).  There's a madness that sets into his eyes, and a lesser actor wouldn't have been able to use sentences like "I'm extraordinary" without some sort of wink to the audience to show he's in on the joke.  The fact that O'Toole doesn't do that puts this up there with George C. Scott in Patton as a look at what war and death does to a man's sole, and how absolute power can corrupt even the most well-intentioned of leaders.  Lawrence is perfect, but Lawrence himself is a man of great fault, a person who has earned the title of hero, but also of the modern-day reality that comes with such a distinction.

Madeleine (1950)

Film: Madeleine (1950)
Stars: Ann Todd, Norman Wooland, Ivan Desny, Leslie Banks
Director: David Lean
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

You may notice in the coming weeks a series of seemingly rarer or more obscure films being reviewed on the blog than usual, and this is intentional.  Unless Barbra Streisand & Guillermo del Toro are successful (bless them for trying), FilmStruck will shudder its services on November 29th, and as a result I will no longer have access to some of the greatest films ever made, many of whom have never been released on home video or whom I don't have access to anywhere on Netflix, Amazon, or the like.  I've made a bucket list doomed to fail (there are too many films on the list that I want to try), but I'm going to go out swinging with the service, and as a result I'll be seeing as many movies on the platform as I can between now and November 29th, its last day in existence.  This weekend I caught two such movies, and we'll be reviewing one now-David Lean's largely forgotten film Madeleine.

(Spoilers Ahead) Going into this picture, I knew very little about the movie.  One of the many "list" projects I'm currently working on viewing is a list of ten of my favorite directors whom I want to see all of their movies, sort of to understand the ways that a career ebbs and flows creatively.  Lean is on that list, and he had a relatively interesting career.  Most noted today for his grand epics like The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Doctor Zhivago, he made a number of smaller, more intimate dramas in the 1940's and 50's that I also enjoyed, albeit ones that few people discuss anymore.  Madeleine was one of those films, and is one that Lean personally disliked (it was his least favorite movie he ever made), and that he created as a "wedding present" for his then-wife Ann Todd who played the role on stage.

The film features Todd as Madeleine Smith, a woman whom Scottish history remembers in the same way Americans remember Lizzie Borden, but whose story I was not remotely familiar with, so this is the rare biopic that I genuinely didn't know was going to end the way that it did.  The film follows Madeleine, a seemingly respectable young girl with a wealthy father, as she has a torrid affair with a French man named Emile (Desny), who is of a lower class.  At the same time, she's dating someone of her social stature named William Minnoch (Wooland), who wants to marry her but she's in love with Emile.  After a while, Emile starts to show that he's just as interested in Madeleine's position and money as he is her, and they break it off, but he begins to blackmail her, threatening to ruin her, and it's clear that either she'll be destroyed or he will.  And then the death happens.

The real-life case of Madeleine Smith ended in a verdict of "Not Proven," and the film does an exquisite job of making this seem as plausible as possible, neither convicting her onscreen nor letting us know that she's innocent.  Todd plays Madeleine as a sweet, but smart girl-someone who knows how the world works and frequently can put on different masks.  It's not a role necessarily made for sympathy (we understand she got into this situation herself, and her treatment of Minnoch raises an eyebrow), but a domineering father and an increasingly abusive Emile makes you empathize with her.  I had seen Todd in other films (other than her work in three Lean pictures, she's most well-known as the leading lady in Alfred Hitchcock's bomb The Paradine Case, which I have seen but have little memory of), and I'll admit to quite liking her work here.  In many ways she reminded me of Joan Fontaine, a sort of edgy stillness in her best moments in the movie, particularly the final moment after she is pronounced "Not Proven" and she slyly breaks the fourth wall.

Because what I didn't know about the case was that it was unsolved, though most modern crime historians believe that Smith likely did kill her lover, and there was just no proof.  This is pretty rare for a film of this era to end so ambiguously, and it was quite titillating.  The first half of the movie I'd argue was relatively dull, but once the "murder or suicide" occurs and we get to trial, watching Madeleine face the salacious downfall of her affair is jolting for a film of the 1950's.  Todd plays her as both respectable and clearly someone who has had sex before (there's a seen where the camera cuts away from her removed scarf that pretty much implies this has happened), and it works.  I'm not sure why Lean didn't like this movie, but I was a fan, and think it is comparable to a number of his films.  If you still have FilmStruck too, first sign the petition, and then make room for Madeleine on your Watchlist-it's a hidden gem that made this platform so magical.

The Living Stars of the Great Directors

Barbara Harris with Alfred Hitchcock on the set of Family Plot

In a month with a lot of obituaries on this blog (here and here), it's worth noting an actor I didn't have time to acknowledge yet, Ms. Barbara Harris.  Harris, a longtime fixture of the New York theater scene, had a brief but glorious tenure as a film star in the 1970's, starring in the original Freaky Friday, getting an Oscar nomination for Who is Harry Kellerman and Why is He Saying Such Terrible Things About Me?, and earning an Oscar nomination even if she didn't receive one for her performance as Albuquerque in Nashville.  Her passing also means that we have one less actor who has been the lead in an Alfred Hitchcock picture still alive.  Harris starred in the Master of Suspense's final film, Family Plot, and was one of ten living figures who have headlined a Hitchcock film; we profiled all 10 of these people in one of my favorite articles of last year.

This got me to thinking, however, how many actors of other Golden Age directors were still with us, and so I set out to challenge myself to look through some of the bigger Hollywood directors of the 1950's and 60's (many of whom would have been considered Hitchcock's peers) to see how many of them still have leading actors and actresses, and found that Hitch, all-things-considered, is doing rather well in terms of longevity even with just nine.  Perhaps because he had a famous penchant for hiring young women early in their careers (Shirley MacLaine and Tippi Hedren getting their first leading roles from the director), Hitch actually has more living leading players than any of the five directors I'm going to take a look at today.  For this article, I'm profiling the leading players of five noted Oscar-winning directors: John Ford, David Lean, Billy Wilder, Elia Kazan, and William Wyler.

(A Quick Note: I will state that when doing these write-ups, "leading" players was a loose term in some cases.  I tried to stick to strictly above-the-line players, but I'll accept quibbles in the comments if there are some actors who might have been the "leads" but weren't famous enough to get top billing at the time).

John Ford with Carroll Baker on the set of
How the West Was Won

John Ford (1894-1973)

Oscar History: Ford would become the most-honored director in the history of the Oscars, winning four Academy Awards for his work in The Informer, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, and The Quiet Man.  In fact, the only time he lost the category was for 1939's Stagecoach (no one was getting bested by Gone with the Wind that year).

Final Film: In addition to making narrative pictures, Ford frequently worked on documentaries, so technically his final movie as a director was Chesty: A Tribute to a Legend (about Marine Corps General Chesty Puller), but his final narrative feature was 7 Women in 1966.

Survivors of His Pictures: Ford frequently worked with the same actors in his pictures, and many of them were from his heyday of the 1940's and 50's (look at how long he worked with the likes of Maureen O'Hara or John Wayne).  As a result, he's tied for the least represented director on this list, but he still has four figures that are still with us.  Among them are Sue Lyon (aged 72, from Ford's 7 Women), Carroll Baker (87, from both Cheyenne Autumn and How the West Was Won), Shirley Jones (84, Two Rode Together) and Dianne Foster (89, Gideon's Day).  These four actresses were relatively well-known in their days, but aside from Jones (who gained most of her modern fame from her work in musicals such as Oklahoma!, Carousel, and The Music Man, as well as her tenure on The Partridge Family, though she was also an Oscar-winner for Elmer Gantry), none of them are what you'd consider household names today; Jones is also the only one of the four that is still acting.  However, I think that TCM or AMPAS or AFI should get these four women on a stage to discuss Ford for posterity before it's too late for us to ask questions about working with such a major director (not to be morbid, but I think this should be true for all of these groups, in my opinion).

Julie Christie with David Lean

David Lean (1908-1991)

Oscar History: David Lean won two Academy Awards in his long career, both for Best Director (The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia).  He was also cited for Best Director for Brief Encounter, Great Expectations, Summertime, Doctor Zhivago, and A Passage to India, losing in all of those contests, and was nominated for writing and editing at points in his career as well.

Final Film: Lean went out with a bang for his final film (the only director on this list to do so), picking 1984's critically-acclaimed A Passage to India as his swan song, coming back after a fourteen-year hiatus following the critically-panned Ryan's Daughter.

Survivors of His Pictures: Like Ford, David Lean worked frequently with the same players in his pictures (actors such as Alec Guinness and Ann Todd were in multiple Lean pictures), so there aren't as many figures to choose from when highlighting the living leads of Lean's filmography.  That being said, there are once again four figures still alive from Lean's pictures: from A Passage to India both Judy Davis (aged 63) and James Fox (79), Ryan's Daughter's Sarah Miles (76), and Doctor Zhivago's Julie Christie (78).  Sarah Miles is the only one of these figures that is officially retired, though Julie Christie is always threatening to do so.  Judy Davis is surely the most active of the bunch, however, having recently been nominated for an Emmy for her work as Hedda Hopper on Feud.

Billy Wilder with Kim Novak on Kiss Me, Stupid

Billy Wilder (1906-2002)

Oscar History: Billy Wilder's career with Oscar was far more celebrated as a writer than as a director.  While he won for helming a picture twice (The Lost Weekend and The Apartment), he was often-cited for writing, getting trophies for both of those two films as well as Sunset Boulevard.  All told he was nominated 21 times for the Oscars, including eight citations for directing (in addition to his two wins, he was also picked for Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Stalag 17, Sabrina, Witness for the Prosecution, and Some Like It Hot).

Final Film: Wilder's final picture was 1981's Buddy Buddy, starring his longtime friends and co-collaborators Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, a film that was reviled by critics (Roger Ebert, in particular, found it an abomination).  Wilder notably disliked the picture, and despite living another two decades, never sat in the director's chair again.

Survivors of His Pictures: Despite working with similar collaborators in the vein of Lean and Ford, Wilder has a bit more luck when it comes to his leading actors, with six of them still with us today.  They include Fedora's Marthe Keller (aged 73), Avanti's Juliet Mills (76), Kiss Me, Stupid's Kim Novak (85), One Two Three's Pamela Tiffin (75), Ace in the Hole's Kirk Douglas (101), and 84-year-old Shirley MacLaine, who starred in Wilder's The Apartment and Irma la Douce, winning Oscar nominations for both of them.  Novak and Tiffin have been retired for a while, and while Kirk Douglas frequently makes appearances still, he hasn't acted professionally in ten years, so really it is Keller, Mills, and MacLaine who you can still see working from Wilder's era.

Elia Kazan with Kirk Douglas 

Elia Kazan (1909-2003)

Oscar History: Kazan won two Best Director trophies (for Gentleman's Agreement and On the Waterfront), while losing three of them (A Streetcar Named Desire, East of Eden, and America, America).  Kazan was also cited for producing and writing in his career, and won a controversial Honorary Oscar in 1998.

Final Film: Like Wilder, Kazan retired from making films decades before his death after a major flop.  Despite having major stars at the time, The Last Tycoon was a critical and (in particular) financial flop that caused Kazan not to make another picture for the final 27 years of his life.

Survivors of His Pictures: Here we have a more robust list of actors that almost approaches the list of survivors of Hitch's films at this point.  Among the final living stars of Kazan's films are Man on a Tightrope's Terry Moore (aged 89), On the Waterfront's Eva Marie Saint (94), Baby Doll's Carroll Baker (87), Splendor in the Grass's Warren Beatty (81), America, America's Stathis Giallelis (77), The Arrangement's Kirk Douglas (101) and Faye Dunaway (77), and The Last Tycoon's Robert de Niro (75).  It's worth noting that Baker and Saint both got Oscar nominations for their work with Kazan (Saint won the trophy), and that most of these people are still working (save Douglas and Baker).  De Niro presented Kazan with his Honorary Oscar in 1998, while Beatty was among the actors who stood and applauded (other actors such as Nick Nolte, Ed Harris, and Amy Madigan famously refused to stand or clap due to Kazan's involvement as a friendly witness during HUAC).

(From Left) Audrey Hepburn, William Wyler, and Shirley MacLaine
on the set of The Children's Hour

William Wyler (1902-1981)

Oscar History: Few directors come close to William Wyler's tenure with the Academy, as he is the only person in history to direct three Best Picture winners: Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives, and Ben-Hur.  In addition to these wins he'd gain another nine nominations for Best Director for a total of twelve (still a record): Dodsworth, Wuthering Heights, The Letter, The Little Foxes, The Heiress, Detective Story, Roman Holiday, Friendly Persuasion, and The Collector, as well as three citations for producing.  He'd take the Thalberg in 1965.

Final Film: I had always thought his final film was Funny Girl, but in the course of researching this article realized it was The Liberation of LB Jones, a drama from 1970 with an all-star cast.  Has anyone seen this-is it any good, cause I might check it out?

Survivors of His Pictures: Wyler, like Kazan, has eight living stars from his films, with two coming from his final picture: Lola Falana (aged 75) and Anthony Zerbe (82).  The other six are Funny Girl's Barbra Streisand (76), The Collector's Terence Stamp (80) & Samantha Eggar (79), The Children's Hour's Shirley MacLaine (at age 84, she's the only living person to have worked with William Wyler, Alfred Hitchcock, AND Billy Wilder), Detective Story's Kirk Douglas (101, as a result the only living person to work with Wyler, Kazan, and Wilder)) and The Heiress's Olivia de Havilland (102).  Wyler, famously an actor's director who was very good at getting Oscar nominations for his performers, directed both Streisand and de Havilland to trophies among these nominees, and Eggar was nominated for her work.  Streisand, Stamp, MacLaine, and Zerbe are all still working of this bunch (the rest have retired, and in Falana's case, has had an extremely interesting series of career turns since her work with Wyler).

There you have it-five famous directors and the actors who still remain from their work.  In the comments, let me know if there are other directors you'd like me to feature in a sequel to this column.

My Dozen Favorite Directors

Eons ago, I started two-thirds of a project about my dozen personal favorite actors and actresses.  I had intended at the time to do my dozen favorite directors, but life got in the way, as did my ability to rank directors.  The reality is that movie stars, and actors, quite frequently you see the best and leave the rest behind, but with directors it's different.  After all, with fine "auteur"-style directors, you get some of their most interesting pictures on the lists of films that aren't as prevalent.  Additionally, I find that comparing director to director in terms of overall careers is extremely challenging.  Do I pick a director like Federico Fellini with a distinctive style, or do I go with someone consistent with less of a visible imprint like William Wyler?  Elia Kazan made two of my all-time favorite movies, but the rest of his filmography I'm just ambivalent toward.  John Huston is one of the most consistent major directors of his era, but I never really loved one of his pictures even if I admire all of them.

So this is even more subjective to my whims today than the other two lists were, and on another day Fellini, Wyler, Kazan, Huston, along with Kurosawa, Cameron, Truffaut, Reed, Preminger, Frankenheimer, Miyazaki, Lee (Spike or Ang), Bertolucci, Polanski, Almodovar, Coppola (Francis or Sofia), Campion, Lumet, Haneke, Capra, Stevens, or Woody Allen may well have made the list (in fact, listed all together I feel like a crazy person discarding them all, particularly in Woody's case as he was 13th).  But anyway, here are my dozen favorites, in alphabetical order, as of this exact moment in time..  Fight away in the comments.

Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007)

Oscar History: 9 nominations/0 wins (Bergman received three citations as a director (the rest as a writer), and won the Thalberg, but somehow never won a competitive Oscar.
First Impressions: I will always remember the first time I saw an Ingmar Bergman movie.  I was 20, and out with a guy named Eric whom I had a crush on (he was a senior, I was a sophomore-it was very chic), and he wanted to go out for ice cream and an old movie house which was playing Wild Strawberries.  I spent the entire night wondering if it was a date (I kind of suspect in hindsight that it was, in which case it was my first with a guy), but was mesmerized by both what was happening off-screen as well as on, as I'd never seen a movie quite like this.
Why the Love: I'm not ranking these directors, but if I'm being honest-Bergman's my favorite, with potentially Kubrick sneaking around the corner.  His movies are wonderfully-specific poems, beautiful odes to cinema and the human experience, in particular our complicated relationship with death as a human species.  Gorgeously shot and felt, I treasure every new Bergman experience I encounter, as it's like experiencing the ocean for the first time.
My Favorite Film: I think I'd have to go with The Seventh Seal.  I genuinely love every Bergman movie I've seen so far, so going with the cliche may seem a bit of a cop-out, but it's so raw and fascinating-the visuals, particularly the knight playing chess with death-it's haunting and still effortlessly fresh.
Missing Piece: There's a few (Bergman made a lot of pictures), though perhaps most egregious is Persona, which I hear is spectacular but somehow has never crossed my path.

Alfonso Cuaron (1961-Present)

Oscar History: 6 nods/2 wins (his two trophies were both for Gravity, for editing and directing, which is to date the only time he's been cited as a director)
First Impressions: This is actually pretty unusual, but the first time I saw one of Cuaron's films, I actually didn't care for it very much.  I was thrilled by the prospect of finally seeing Y Tu Mama Tambien, as it had been celebrated by a film critic I enjoy, and it looked "naughty" and at that point in my life I hadn't really experienced a lot of saucy pictures.  But I wasn't blown away by it, even if I feel like I should revisit as I wonder if I'd like it better on revisit.  It was, indeed, "naughty" (that penultimate scene between Bernal and Luna being a sensational payoff to what the film was building toward), but I was meh until then.  Thankfully, I didn't give up on Cuaron at that point, though, as he eventually paid off in a major way.
Why the Love: Cuaron is a strange beast as he's one of the least prolific directors on this list, and as a result it feels weird to put him here when, say, Wyler or Allen have a much more quantitative filmography (unless you die tragically young, this isn't the case with actors, which is perhaps why it's easier to compare them side-by-side as they work so consistently).  Still, Cuaron can find so much magic in how a film is built (it helps that he's an editor), and the end product is so rich and rewarding, it's impossible not to list him as one of my favorites, even if I desperately wish he'd work more.
My Favorite Film: This is easy-Children of Men is a triumph, one of the finest films ever made, and a wonderful essay on the greatest headlines of the human experience: birth, life, love, and death.  That it wasn't heralded as the monument that it was is still baffling to me in an otherwise lackluster cinematic year.
Missing Piece: A Little Princess, which I can't actually remember if I saw (or if I saw the PBS miniseries, which part of me believes is accurate).  Either way, this is the only major Cuaron film I've never caught.

John Ford (1894-1973)

Oscar History: 6 nods/4 wins (Ford picked up a quartet of Best Director trophies for The Informer, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, and The Quiet Man)
First Impressions: Ford has made so many movies I honestly have no idea which one I saw first.  I'm going to guess it was The Grapes of Wrath, a picture I've seen several times and which never loses its potency.  I distinctly remember being in awe of the way that Henry Fonda was filmed (so beautiful in the moonlight), and that marvelous set of final monologues from Fonda (who deserved the Oscar-let's be real here) and Jane Darwell at the end of the picture.  It isn't my type of film, exactly, but every time I see it I'm reminded that genre is only a framing device, and good movies can be made in any such circumstance.
Why the Love: When Ingmar Bergman AND Orson Welles are calling you the greatest director of all-time, you're doing something right.  Ford's films, easily dismissable as westerns or as hokum, have a lot more going on below the surface than meets the eye.  Whether it's the technical virtuosity of The Quiet Man or the lonely indictment on wealth in The Informer or the nasty pessimism of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Ford's take on the movies are passionate to his vision, artistic, and eminently watchable.  No director before or since has put so much richness and thought into an almost completely commercial set of movies.
My Favorite Film: Oh, The Searchers, surely.  While Ford has made many superb pictures, this stands apart as the greatest.  John Wayne has never been better, and Ford frames this tale of hatred, bigotry, and revenge in such a way that you feel Ethan Edwards for weeks afterwards, realizing truths that both actor and director packed into the film.  That neither was even nominated for an Oscar for such a film is insanity.
Missing Piece: I mean, I've actually seen pretty much every major picture in Ford's career, but he made so many movies there's obviously a number of missing pieces.  Perhaps The Long Voyage Home, the rare Ford Best Picture nominee that I've never caught.

Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980)

Oscar History: 5 nominations/0 wins (though he won the Thalberg, Hitch never actually got a competitive trophy despite five nominations for Best Director)
First Impressions: I'm sure my first impression of Hitchcock was Psycho, initially seeing the famous shower scene repeatedly in clip shows, and then actually catching the movie, and realizing A) that shower scene is ridiculously effective in the movie, and B) it's got a lot of other nearly as perfect scenes.
Why the Love: It's impossible to like the cinema and not like Hitchcock, in my opinion.  The way he moves the camera, the way he indulges the senses (the chills, the women, the music-it's all sensationalistic in the best way).  When he's at his best you forget you're watching a movie and just sort of are transported into what is happening onscreen.  Few directors consistently made such superb pictures and adapted to the times so well as Hitch did-his films of the 1954-1963 era are arguably the most popular, but he made interesting work his entire career.
My Favorite Film: I'd have to say Vertigo, which feels like a cliche (because everyone says Vertigo in a way of avoiding the cliche of everyone saying Psycho), but it's incredible.  Stewart has never been better, truly, and the movie's descent of one man is spellbinding.
Missing Piece: My brother has assured me on multiple occasions that I'm a fool for not having seen Strangers on a Train yet, and I know it's coming up on my Netflix queue so perhaps quite soon I'll correct this?

Richard Linklater (1960-Present)

Oscar History: 5 nominations/0 wins (Linklater has yet to take a trophy, and actually has only one Best Director nomination, for Boyhood)
First Impressions: I didn't grow up quoting Dazed and Confused, and quite frankly my impression of Richard Linklater was hardly impressive until I actually caught one of his movies, Before Sunrise, and was in awe of how masterfully it was filmed and how beautiful the picture before me was.
Why the Love: Linklater's an odd director to adore, and the newest addition to this list in terms of my viewing him, but I always seem to find something new to admire about his work, and how naturalistic the writing is.  Though he lacks the stylistic visual cues that made Bergman famous, the way he focuses the camera on a group of actors and waits until something magical happens is remarkable.  I am still getting to know his filmography, but have genuinely loved every single picture of his that I've seen.
My Favorite Film: Before Sunset will probably remain here forever, though I mean it when I said I loved every single picture so far (including the wildly underrated Everybody Wants Some!!!).  But Before Sunset is that rare romantic drama film with a ticking clock where you can't tell if the chief protagonists will realize that they're soulmates in time.  It spoke to me in a big way when I first saw it, and I'm just in awe even still.
Missing Piece: I still haven't actually watched Dazed and Confused, which feels bizarre as it's such a big reason why people recognize his pictures.  It's on the Netflix list, however, so someday it'll happen.

Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999)

Oscar History: 13 nominations/1 win (two shocking things here: one, I never knew that Kubrick won an Oscar for Visual Effects, assuming that he was Oscar-less, but instead that was just for Best Director where he went 0/4, and secondly-the 2001 VFX Oscar wasn't shared with Douglas Trumbull-how'd that happen?)
First Impressions: I was debating quite loudly with myself, and then realized that it was The Shining (if not, I'd have to share a very odd experience about being in the closet and watching Eyes Wide Shut with a very straight man in tenth grade).  I remember being scared and fascinated, and particularly wondering what the hell "here's Johnny" was from (Carson was before my time).
Why the Love: Kubrick films are at once decidedly and completely Kubrick films, and then somehow very different stylistically.  It's hard to imagine that the guy who made Dr. Strangelove also made 2001 and Barry Lyndon and A Clockwork Orange.  His movies are always thought-provoking and interesting-it's impossible not to have a visceral reaction to his pictures, and for me, that usually was a positive thing as his reputation grows personally with me over time (case in point-I hated 2001 the first time I saw it...and now it's on my 100 Favorite Movies list).
My Favorite Film: 2001 may someday get there, but right now it's still A Clockwork Orange, a difficult sit but a shockingly effective, violent picture that feels so bundled with raw energy I spent the entire first time through it sitting on the literal edge of my seat.
Missing Piece: Weirdly I've never seen Full Metal Jacket.  I say weirdly because my first college roommate actually liked this movie, and it was perhaps the only one of his films that I legitimately wanted to see, and somehow I never did.

David Lean (1908-1991)

Oscar History: 11 nominations/2 wins (Lean weirdly enough won both of his trophies for directing, which hasn't been the case so far here for writer-directors, taking trophies for Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia)
First Impressions: Hmm, probably The Bridge on the River Kwai.  My grandfather after his stroke would watch this movie incessantly, so I got to see bits of it all the time.  I remember liking parts, but not really getting it properly until I was much older and could appreciate the "madness" angle of Alec Guiness' haunting work.
Why the Love: Lean's films are that rare combination of big, huge, gargantuan cinema combined with delicate treasures of performances.  It's hard to fathom, after all, the subtle shifts in Peter O'Toole's performance as he drifts into madness amidst the backdrop of the gargantuan Lawrence of Arabia or how beautiful Julie Chrisie's romance is amidst the ice castle wonder of Doctor Zhivago.  I frequently say my favorite films are well-done romantic epics.  When I say that, I'm thinking of Lean.
My Favorite Film: Part of me wants to say Brief Encounter, one of those underrated classics that just gets better with each passing year, but I spent a year of my life in college devoted to Lawrence of Arabia, and so I have to pick that, one of my all-time favorite pictures.
Missing Piece: Here's where we actually get pretty odd, as I've seen virtually everything David Lean has ever directed (even obscure titles like Hobson's Choice or This Happy Breed), so I'll go with In Which We Serve which I hear is wonderful but haven't caught yet.

Terrence Malick (1943-Present)

Oscar History: 3 nominations/0 wins (two nods for directing The Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life)
First Impressions: I will never forget my first experience with a Terrence Malick movie.  It was The New World, and to be honest I'd never seen one of his films, or wasn't even familiar with them, and my parents wanted to go because it was about John Smith and Pocahontas, and that sounded fun.  About a third into the film, and we had seen this intense, lush green cinematography but nothing much more than that, my mom reached over and said, "I don't know what's going on," and I said "it's supposed to be artsy," to which she replied "okay" and went back to playing with her Indiglo watch for the remainder of the picture.  Suffice it to say, I haven't taken them to a Malick film since.
Why the Love: Because Malick tackles his films in a way no one else does.  I get sick of all films looking exactly the same or needing the same structure.  When he's at his best, Malick can create something haunting and riveting on the screen.  Yes, he can be indulgent (the sparseness of language in something like Knight of Cups occasionally borders on the frustrating), but when he's on there's literally no director I'd rather sit in a theater and let his movie wash over me in the same way.
My Favorite Film: His Tree of Life is one of my all-time favorite pictures, period, so most assuredly it would be that.  I never don't like a Malick film though, even when other people hate them.
Missing Piece: Somehow I've never caught Badlands through the years, which is so strange considering both my penchant for Malick and what a towering achievement this film is considered (one of those rare classics I've never caught).

Martin Scorsese (1942-Present)

Oscar History: 12 nominations/1 win (I remember standing and applauding when Marty finally took that Oscar for The Departed)
First Impressions: My first impression of Marty was probably GoodFellas.  As he didn't really make children's films prior to 2011 (Hugo being an obvious entry point for younger cinephiles now), it was an edited down version of the film, but I was enthralled initially, particularly by the famous walk through the club and how cute a young Ray Liotta was.
Why the Love: Scorsese's films are an ode to movie-making, and how much he loves to self-reflect and share his love of the cinema onscreen.  You see in his movies a deliberation, someone working through his world artistically and narratively, trying to make sense of his life and religion itself.  Scorsese is a deeply personal filmmakers, but makes universal pictures that anyone can relate toward-that's a pretty impressive achievement.  Plus, who doesn't like Marty?  He's one of my absolute favorite celebrities to hear interviewed.
My Favorite Film: The strange thing about Scorsese is that he's the only director on this list to not have a film on my 100 Favorite Movies list, so I actually had to think on this one.  I suspect it would be Taxi Driver, though.  The film has one of the best performances de Niro ever turned in, and it's shockingly vibrant forty years after it was made.
Missing Piece: This won't be a missing piece for long as literally the disc is on my counter right now, but Mean Streets has somehow eluded me all of these years.  Can't wait to catch what some consider to be his finest work (it might even be tonight).

Steven Spielberg (1946-Present)

Oscar History: 16 nominations/3 wins (two of those trophies for directing Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan...he also won the Thalberg quite early in his career)
First Impressions: Unlike most of these directors, Spielberg makes films that are appropriate for children (and he made them when I was, indeed, a kid).  That being said, I wonder if my first introduction to Spielberg might have been Hook, not one of his finer moments, even though I was enchanted at the time.  I tend to love the Neverland stories, though (PJ Hogan's Peter Pan being the best by a country mile), and particularly Spielberg's ability to world-build (which even in his least pictures, he can succeed in accomplishing).
Why the Love: To grow up when I did and to love cinema is to love Spielberg.  No, he's not always as artistic or challenging as some of the other men on this list, but he is surely the most cinematic, and when he's on is creating an adventure that transcends the movies.  Jaws, ET, Schindler, AI, Minority Report, Raiders of the Lost Ark-the man has more genuine classics than pretty much any other director.
My Favorite Film: While those are all classics, the one that makes me tremble with joy the most is still Jurassic Park.  It's not his most ambitious work (AI) or his tightest (Jaws) or his most moving (Schindler) or even the most inventive world-building (Minority Report), but it is the one where I genuinely have the most fun.  And sometimes the movies should be about the most fun (plus, let's be honest-it's peak popcorn fare).
Missing Piece: Like David Lean, I've seen pretty much everything (I've caught 77% of Spielberg's filmography, missing only 7 pictures).  Of the seven, I'd say that Amistad is the one that's the highest on my "to view"list.

Orson Welles (1915-1985)

Oscar History: 3 nominations/1 win (Welles' only competitive win was for writing Citizen Kane, the film that won him his only directing nomination, though he did win an Honorary Oscar quite late in his career)
First Impressions: It's a weird film to see first of a director (usually there's a more juvenile entry point), but Citizen Kane has to have been my first Welles film, and the first one I think I even saw him act in (give or take an appearance with the Muppets).  I left doubly-impressed (the ending hadn't been ruined for me at that point), and clamoring for more.
Why the Love: It's worth noting that Welles appeared not only on this list, but my actors list as well, the only person to do so despite so many men who have tried their hand successfully at both.  Perhaps this is because Welles the director was so driven and matter-of-fact in the way that he brought his universe to life.  His films are rife with wonderful acting, dialogue, and terrific lighting-Welles never stopped being that young man who took on William Randolph Hearst, at least as a director, continually challenging himself while occasionally selling out his name as a performer.  As a result, we got some of the most original movies of the era from Hollywood's bad boy.
My Favorite Film: Again, cliches be damned-Citizen Kane is, truly, one of the best movies ever made and in an era of Trump, perhaps more appropriate than ever (oh how the mighty fall in trying to recapture something that will never be).  Still, Touch of Evil comes close behind, and is in its own way a masterwork.
Missing Piece: The Other Side of Wind?  Hee hee, but seriously, I'd probably say that if it counts...otherwise maybe Chimes at Midnight?

Billy Wilder (1906-2002)

Oscar History: 21 nominations/6 wins (Wilder pulled off two directing trophies for The Lost Weekend and The Apartment...like several of these men he'd also go on to win the Thalberg Award)
First Impressions: I'm not sure, once again, but my gut says it was The Lost Weekend, which I saw at a relatively young age, and quite frankly, wasn't impressed by it.  Considering the lavish praise for the film at the time (it's a Best Picture winner, after all), I will surely revisit at some point in the future but it's not what you'd consider "in my wheelhouse."
Why the Love: First off, who doesn't love at least one Billy Wilder movie?  I don't think you can call yourself a fan of the cinema and not profess to being head-over-heels for one of his pictures.  They're so damn good.  Wilder isn't really an auteur in the vein of many of these men (I like those guys with a consistent vision), but he consistently wrote and directed some of the cinema's best movies.  That in-itself should warrant a spot on this list, even if he's a less traditional way to end this than, say, Woody Allen or Akira Kurosawa.
My Favorite Film: I love so many of his pictures, but it'd likely be Sunset Boulevard.  Buoyed by a greatest-of-all-time level performance from Gloria Swanson, the movie is a shattering look at how Hollywood worships and then destroys its stars, and the way that we as a larger society treat our elders.  It's a nasty bit of work with some truly biting wordplay.  Absolutely sensational.
Missing Piece: Perhaps The Seven Year Itch?  I've seen all of the A-Pictures in Wilder's filmography, but Monroe at her height would be something I'd like to see, particularly considering he got her best performance out of her in Some Like It Hot.

And there you have it-the long-awaited Directors list!  Weigh in below on whether you agree or disagree, who should be added/deleted, and your favorite films/missing pieces from these twelve men!