25 Most Influential Moviemaking Men
Submitted by AJDaGreat on Tue, 07/23/2002 - 09:12
Tags:
- Humphrey Bogart
- David Lean
- Lawrence Olivier
- Billy Wilder
- Dustin Hoffman
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Robert De Niro
- Akira Kurosawa
- Jimmy Stewart
- Orson Welles
- Marlon Brando
- Steven Spielberg
- Clark Gable
- Jean Renoir
- Al Pacino
- Stanley Kubrick
- Cary Grant
- John Ford
- Charlie Chaplin
- Buster Keaton
- Robert Bresson
- Ernst Lubitsch
- Spencer Tracy
- Howard Hawks
- Gregory Peck
- Gene Kelly
- James Cagney
- Gary Cooper
- John Williams
- Frank Capra
- Henry Fonda
- Preston Sturges
- Fred Astaire
- John Wayne
- George S. Kaufman
- Woody Allen
- Federico Fellini
- Robert Altman
- Francois Truffaut
- Francis Ford Coppola
- The Shaw Brothers
- Fritz Lang
- Sergei Eisenstein
- Elia Kazan
- F.W. Murnau
- Mack Sennett
- Vittorio De Sica
- Luis Bunuel
- David O. Selznick
- Ingmar Bergman
- Erich Von Stroheim
- D.W. Griffith
- Giovanni Pastrone
- Billy Bitzer
- Josef Von Sternberg
- Gregg Toland
- Roman Polanski
- Thomas Ince
- Gordon Willis
- John Alonzo
- Warren Beatty
- Sam Peckinpah
- Krzysztof Kieslowski
- Sergio Leone
- Martin Scorcese
- Paddy Chayefsky
- Bernard Herrmann
- Freddie Young
- John Lasseter
- Quentin Tarantino
- Walt Disney
- Jack Warner
- Harry Cohn
- David O. Selznick
- Irving Thalberg
- Louis B. Mayer
Author Comments:
You may notice that there are more than 25 here. That's because I want this to be a group effort - everyone, help me make this list as definitive as it can be. Who belongs but isn't here? Who doesn't belong but is here? Come and help me! I also want to rank them eventually, but for now the list is in no particular order.
Woo-hoo! I made the Hall of Fame! Take THAT, UncRoger, rudean77, and BuckGS71!!!
Well, off of this list, I've got to say that the top three in my book are:
3. Billy Wilder
2. Keaton/Chaplin
1. Akira Kurosawa
But, I must place an FYC ad here.
For Your Consideration
Woody Allen
Good call. I'll add him.
Come on, where's Russ Meyer?
Just kidding!
You've got a great list going here, but I feel you've got it slanted towards actors and directors of the 40's, 50's & 60's. I'd humbly like to include the following, for your consideration:
- Robert Altman
- Francis Ford Coppola
- Federico Fellini
- Francois Truffaut (sp?)
- The Shaw Brothers (okay, this one might be a stretch)
I'm sure there's more...I'll keep ya posted!
I'll add you first four. But I must admit, I've never heard of the Shaw Brothers. I'll consider adding them if you'd just tell me what their first names are so I can look them up on IMDb.
The Shaw Brothers produced the first stream of martial arts films that came out of Hong Kong. Without their popularization, we wouldn't have both Golden Harvest Productions, which produced all of Bruce Lee's films, and to a further extent, the ongoing popularity, for better or worse, of Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and "The Matrix."
Here's a filmography. The Shaw Brother's collection has been in the news recently, as it is due for a restoration. I'm personally pretty excited about the potential for some restored prints to hit DVD, as I remember loving some of their movies as a kid. Unfortunately I'm usually disappointed when I revisit my childhood pleasures as an adult, but a guy can hope. Kung-fu Theater was the best thing to watch at 3PM on Saturdays. Although I probably should have spent more time outside. :-)
Influential, eh?
***D.W. Griffith!!!*** (Most certainly)
- and, by extension, Giovanni Pastrone (not the greatest director by any means, but no Pastrone, no Griffith) and Billy Bitzer.
Fritz Lang
Sergei Eisenstein
Elia Kazan
F.W. Murnau
Mack Sennett
Vittorio De Sica
Luis Bunuel
David O. Selznick
Ingmar Bergman
Erich Von Stroheim
Roman Polanski (though people may not realize the influence of Repulsion, Knife in the Water, Rosemary's Baby, and Chinatown (the grand-daddy of neo-noir) yet)
Josef Von Sternberg
Gregg Toland
Well, there's a few, mostly directors. (Selznick was a producer and Bitzer and Toland are cinematographers)
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Oh, and I have to add, very quickly, Thomas Ince. For better or worse, Ince absolutely belongs on this list.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
And Gordon Willis, who gave us the look of The Godfathers, Klute, Manhattan, and Annie Hall, for starters. John Alonzo lensed Harold and Maude, Chinatown, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and was still going when he died in 2001.
And even ignoring his acting (hard to do), Warren Beatty. If Beatty didn't fight for it, Bonnie & Clyde would have never happened, and the film world could look very differently today.
Alright, I'll shut up now.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
I only recently watched The Wild Bunch, but how 'bout Sam Peckinpah?
Excellent choice!
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Some more influential men for this list:
Directors: Krzysztof Kieslowski - His "Decalogue" and the "Three Colors" trilogy are required viewing; Sergio Leone; Orson Welles; Martin Scorcese
Screenwriters: Paddy Chayefsky
Composers: Bernard Herrmann
Cinematographers: Freddie Young
Has Kieslowski been very influential yet? I do love Red, however...
For the 90s, surely Tarantino has been the most influential, with John Lasseter (all-around Pixar dude) running a close second (hence Shrek, Antz, Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Ice Age, etc...).
I certainly applaud your other choices! How did we all miss Scorsese? Gee, even music videos wouldn't be the same without him!
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Oops! Orson Welles was already there...
I sense a disconnect in this list between the content of this list and the title of this list. Perhaps people are mixing up influential and prolific or important? There are plenty of important filmmakers on here but I don't see how influential they are. To help out you might want to keep track next to each suggestion what exactly you think they influenced.
I think the big one that jumps out at me as missing from this list as it is right now is Walt Disney. In my opinion you can't have any others in the field of animation until you have him.
I also think there are way too many actors. I can't imagine there are but a few actors that belong on this list.
This isn't supposed to be a definitive list...yet. I just put up a lot of names originally, and I've been adding any ones that people have said since. I'm hoping eventually we can narrow it down to 25, and rank them all. I admit, some of these people I've never even heard of.
Actually, not to be too contrary, but Winsor McCay is probably even more influential than Walt Disney in the field of animation. If he didn't invent it, he certainly popularized personality animation (character-based animation instead of flying images disconnected from personalities) and popularized animation to such a degree that many people still mistakenly believe he created the art. He *may* have also been the first to marry animation to narrative. He also arguably made the first feature-length (for its time) animated film (The Sinking of the Lusitania - 1918).
As Maltin said, "For years, Gertie [a McCay film] hsa been named in histories as the first animated cartoon. With all its impact, it might as well have been."
Just my opinion.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs (a huge McCay fan!)
Good point dgeiser. I think there are indeed too many actors on this list, some of whom are quite similar to each other. For example, you can make the argument that Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper and Henry Fonda were essentially the same actor; strong, silent types with unshakable moral character and dignity who always seemed to overcome crises surrounding their fictional lives. And for my tastes, DeNiro and Pacino seem to quite often claim the exclusive domain of the brooding, intense fringe-dweller drowning in a sea of emotional disconnect (at least in some of their most well-known roles, and not the drivel they've chosen to participate in). But, never fear, there are many on this list that can be said, "without whom, there would be no..."
I will give you Stewart and Cooper but Henry Fonda has had a much more diverse career. Think Lady Eve, Once Upon a Time In America and the Ox Bow Incident as prime examples.
But you and Dan are right there are too many actors. Actors in the golden era had very litte influence on moviemaking in the Studio era. Actually today, actors probably have the more influence than they ever had before.
To be honest the biggest ommisions on this list and I mean they are pretty big omissions are the studio heads of yesteryear.
I am thinking people lile Jack Warner, Harry Cohn, David O Selznick, Irving Thalberg, Louis B Mayer. These guys were the ones who controlled and directed Hollywood's supposed Golden Era. Their influnce is eveywhere in some of the greatest movies ever made.
Hey, AJ! I've been brainstorming a little and I think perhaps the topic of this list is too broad to be covered in this manner. Perhaps if you created lists for each type of role which can be filled in the moviemaking process and took nominations for each role and then had a poll where we could vote on which we think was most influential in that role you might be able to pare this down into something more palatable.
You could really specific if so desired. For example, directing might be too broad but you could do Directing for different genres, e.g. War, Western, Comedy, Animation, Drama, Mystery, etc. If you aren't interested in breaking it down that way let me know and I'll give it a shot.
I agree that it probably needs to be broken down into occupation, but probably not into genre and decade. I don't think I'm the one to do that, though, so I hereby swear you in as the new Keeper of the Moviemaking Influence List.
Oh, I agree that the decades aren't necessary. I was just using that to trace back through the history of the craft. I'll see what I can come up with for nomination categories.
AJ, I went ahead and cloned your list and then threw up some categories. I definitely think we need more category suggestions. Once we have those we can continue to have a field day with suggestions and then once the suggestions die down we can create the polls and vote.
By the time it's all said and done I think we'll have come up with a pretty substantial short list of the most influential filmmakers and then you can go ahead and post the results here on this list since it was your idea. And a really great idea at that!
I always enjoy it when new, intelligent people get involved in our little community here.
Thank you for the kind words. I hope this list turns out well. Good luck!
Lumiere Brothers?
Dickson?
Edison?
Melies?
Porter?
Without these guys film history would be a LOT different. Far more different than if we'd been left without, say, Hoffman, Altman, or half of the others on your list. In my opinion, obviously.
Certainly good calls. If you'll read some of the above discussions, this is a project that was steered in many directions but ultimately pretty much abandoned. You will note, of course, that there are far more than 25 people here.
Oh, abandoned, okay.
What about:
Sir Alec Guinness
James Dean
Paul Newman
Mike Nichols
Jack Nicholson
Arthur Penn?
Good ideas, but if you'll note my conversation with lukeprog above, this list was pretty much abandoned.
Well, even though the list is abandoned, I'm glad you still have it up. Even though it is abandoned, I'd like to nominate Ray Harryhausen. 'Course, my interest is special effects and he was a master. So, any who see this can smile at slow old me. --Dash