why do good film directors go bad? (and what's the ultimate example?)

Does Pret A Porter fit here? Altman made crap before and good stuff after - it wasn't exactly a sign of his immediate decline.

Unless you're a big fan of the Aviator, I guess.

tony scott!

xxp

In general, film is enough of a collaborative medium that a director like Coppola can work hard scene by scene to tell a story with his particular style, or, with a movie like The Rainmaker, can let the actors and the screenplay do the work without imposing much of a style or vision on it.

Altman's and Scorcese's weakest have the same feeling as Miami Vice - where there are great shots and scenes (see the opening shot of Bringing Out The Dead), accompanied by the feeling that something went fundamentally wrong in production - something unsound in the casting or the structure.

On the otherhand, The Rainmaker has a sound structure but is boring. Same with that Sydney Pollack U.N. movie (though I'm a big defender of Random Hearts).

Good Scott:
Matchstick Men
Alien
Blade Runner (esp. the director's cut)
Black Hawk Down (I love the fact that half of everyone I know says the movie is "too patriotic," and the other half say, "it's anti-american." Some people think it's racist, which is ridiculous.)
The Duellists (maybe my favorite)

BAD Scott:
Kingdom of Heaven (lots of speeches that are supposed to be moving, but they're just incoherent and boring. a recurrent problem)
Gladiator (not bad for a B movie, actually)
White Squall
G.I Jane
Legend (a very formative movie for me, I sorta like it but I recognize it's fairly awful)

not sure he tops wenders though - i can imagine wanting to see another bertolucci film, i can even imagine another good bertolucci film. have a very very hard time imagining either occurring with wenders. i don't mind formerly unqualified great filmmakers making heavily flawed works late in the career - i tend to like these 'flawed' works most of all, they're often the most surprising, most humane, most fun. i'm not sure how many filmmakers there are that had lengthy careers and were as consistent, strong, and masterful at the end of their career as they were at their earlier peak - bresson, bunuel, who else? the only movies i've loved from scorsese in the past ten years are kundun and the aviator (and both of those with some reservations), but botd and gony both definitely had moments. personally can't say that for any recent bertolucci or wenders.

Even Jean Renoir, the director I consider the greatest of all, made a number of inert films.

'the aviator' is really good, better than 'gony' yeah. it moves pretty quick for a three-hour biopic, though mostly it just seemed like an excuse for scorsese to make a film set in old hollywood. but i think 'bringing out the dead' is his best film over the past 11-12 years, or however long it's been since 'casino' came out.

I liked it, but I could totally understand why someone wouldn't.

they stop doing massive amounts of coke

Good Director, Baaaad Movie...

welles, tho that's cheating a bit since he didn't finish a single film for the last decade of his life.

Fellini did Amacord in 73 and only did a handful after that...

i almost mentioned welles and rossellini for 'out on a peak' but figured someone somewhere would take issue. bergman's probably an obv example of that too for people who like bergman. fellini was productive well after l'amarcord, decline in quality (as to be expected) but no huge dropoff into unwatchable awfulness or anything - ginger and fred's great, intervista feels so totally closing act i always forget there's that one after it. of the really big heavyweights is their a bigger gulf in quality between peak and late late work than w/ kurosawa? maybe chaplin if you include him in the big heavyweights. who here's seen cheyenne autumn?

after he decided to make a sequel, it kinda went downhill from there

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39598000/jpg/_39598523_peter_jackson_pa.jpg

Sound of Claudia Schiffer, The (2000)
Samson and Delilah (1996) (TV)
Hotel Paradise (1995)
Full Body Massage (1995) (TV)
Two Deaths (1995)
Heart of Darkness (1994) (TV)
"Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, The" (1992) TV Series (episode "Paris, October 1916")
Cold Heaven (1991)
Witches, The (1990)
Sweet Bird of Youth (1989) (TV)
Track 29 (1988)
Aria (1987) (segment "Un ballo in maschera")
Castaway (1986)
Insignificance (1985)
Eureka (1984)
Bad Timing (1980)
Man Who Fell to Earth, The (1976)
Don't Look Now (1973)
Walkabout (1971)
Performance (1970)

if we're going to claim bertolucci lost it with 'tango', we can as easily say renoir lost it when he went to america and bunuel lost it after 'l'age d'or'.

i think coppola is the ultimate example -- there is nothing i've seen post-'apocalypse now' that i'd want to see again.

But the first name that came up for me was:

http://www.brownsteins.net/Ulpan/Images/Mel%20Brooks.jpg

His "History of the world" was tedium. I quite liked "Life Stinks", but maybe he didn't change, maybe we did.

Heavenly Creatures? it's a decent flick but if a director hadn't made anything as good as it for 12 years i'd say he was in trouble. not that i think Jackson is a good answer here.

to

http://www.undergroundfilm.org/userphotos/16560_lpic.jpg

(maybe this just gets the award in steepest quality drop)

John McTiernan:

Rollerball (2002)
The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
The 13th Warrior (1999)
Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995)
Last Action Hero (1993)
Medicine Man (1992)
The Hunt for Red October (1990)
Die Hard (1988)
Predator (1987)

..and then perhaps to jail!