re: Is Stanley Kubrick The Greatest Director of All Time?

Ed Wood and it ain't even close.

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If you could only watch one director's filmography for the rest of your life, who would you pick?


Spielberg

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After looking at their work, can I change to Clint Eastwood

How do you define greatness?

John Ford is probably the most accomplished and probably the greatest based on body of work.

The Grapes of Wrath
How Green Was my Valley
My Darling Clementine
Fort Apache
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon
Rio Grande
The Quiet Man
The Searchers
Mogambo
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence

Ingmar Bergman called him the greatest movie director of all time and Orson Welles regarded him highly. With four Academy Awards, he is the most honored director in film history.

And his film The Searchers is consistently in the Top 10 for the greatest film of all-time voted on by Directors in Sight and Sound.

Martin Scorcese called it the perfect film.

But I think there are three geniuses of the last century in film:

Orson Welles
Stanley Kubrick
Akira Kurosawa

Welles got screwed and blackballed as a genius and doesn't have the resume but he was a genius to the medium and so was Kubrick...Dr. Strangelove and Barry Lyndon and Paths of Glory and 2001 are sublime film-making.

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If you could only watch one director's filmography for the rest of your life, who would you pick?

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For me the answer to that question is Quentin Tarantino. Haven’t seen him mentioned yet but he deserves mention.

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Kubrick is obviously in the conversation. I think Billy Wilder is also in that conversation. Spielberg, Scorcese, Francis Ford Coppola, the Coens, Hitchcock, Lynch and Ridley Scott round out the rest of my top tier.

And I know that ignores greats from the past like DeMille, John Huston, John Ford, Howard Hawks and guys we forget are great directors (at times) like Clint Eastwood.

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Agree with all of those and would add Orson Welles and Roberto Rossellini.

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He is without a doubt the greatest technical filmmaker. The stuff he does is on another level from everyone else. His movies tend to be a bit cold and don't have the rewatchability factor for some people though.

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My exact sentiments. I belive Kubrick to be tbe greatest visual filmmaker ever, and the only other director even remotely close to him is Malick (of course Malick has his own set of problems as a storyteller that put him in a whole different, not so positive category)

The "coldness" of Kubrick films is also a very real thing...and to me, it comes first from how he directed his actors, and then from lack of camera movement and sweeping shots like Spielberg and Scorsese, PTA, Tarantino, and even old timers like John Ford used to such great effect. It gave the pictures life and is very soothing and smooth to the eye.

Kubrick, though, shot his films like a still photographer... Which he was by trade, even as a teenager. It's how he learned film and it shows.

That why he, above anyone else, always used point perspective mad symmetry in his shots. It's why the stills of his scenes can be framed as world class photographs. Just look at the balance and geometry and starkness in these shots.




Even as far back as his first film, "Killers Kiss" linear shots were heavily featured. Really only "Barry Lyndon" was it not as heavily featured, because he was mimicing 18ty century paintings., but they were still full of traditional photographic balance.

It just wasn't quite as stark.

The guy was an absolute genius and could take on any genre, he just put his own somewhat twisted spin on it.

Personally, though, as much as I am a Kubrick fan and admirer of his work, it is hard to watch many of his films more than about once a year at the Most.they're just so heavy and often thought provoking.

That's why I always considered Spielberg probably as the greatest director ever. Does he have the street cred of Kubrick, no probably not... But his ability to make both artistic films, especially his earlier stuff, and make them into massive commercial successes cannot be understated. Kubrick, though, is probably the most respected filmmaker ever...eity maybe Kurosawa or Leone or Orson welles there too.