Reading Mark Harris' potent provocation of a book, Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, got me thinking of what's needed to kick Hollywood in the ass. The book focuses on 1967 and the five films Oscar nominated for Best Picture: Two groundbreakers (Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate) versus a tired old Hollywood musical (Dr. Dolittle) and a pair of films about race relations (Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, In the Heat of the Night). Harris uses those films, and the process to develop them that stretched back to 1963, to show us Hollywood at a crossroads. It was a time of rule breaking—you can feel director Mike Nichols cracking through youth formula in The Graduate and director Arthur Penn and producer Warren Beatty reinventing the gangster genre by investing techniques of the New Wave into Bonnie and Clyde. The eventual Oscar winner, In the Heat of the Night, was a safer choice, but the change in the air was undeniable and you can feel it whipping through the pages of this witty, wizardly book.
Harris, a columnist at Entertainment Weekly, brings a reporter's rigor and an advovate's passion to the possibilities of film. He blows the dust off film history, leaving us with a living portrait of a rebel generation. There's a scrappy dare in his words that speaks to the right now and makes Pictures that rare book on film that deserves to be called indispensable.
Pictures at a Revolution offers all of us a challenge. Change was everywhere in 1967—it was the year Rolling Stone first published and dedicated itself not just to music but the things and attitudes that the music embraces. For a generation raised on rock, rebel movies have the same juice: youth, defiance, danger, fun and the promise of rule-busting experimentation that might just point the way ahead. Which leads to my question: Who've we got now? Let's jump ahead 40 years, and identify the new revolutionaries, who are changing the way films are made, seen and discussed. I'll let it rip with my top three. Feel free to shout me down and start your own list.
Paul Thomas Anderson
Anderson's There Will Be Blood occupied the Bonnie and Clyde slot in the 2007 Oscar contest for Best Picture. It changed the way we look at movies. Anderson, 37, is the maverick incarnate. His films, Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love, follow no formula. And Anderson himself cares little for who he might piss off on the road to creating his own forms.
Joel and Ethan Coen
No Country for Old Men brought them their first Best Picture and Best Directing Oscars. But if you've watched from Blood Simple through the brilliant likes of The Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink and Fargo, you know they could start their own revolution double-handed.
Julien Schnabel
The painter and conceptual artist showed how he could do the impossible in film as well with The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, about a man who learned to communicate by blinking his left eyelid. In only his third feature, after Basquiat and Before Night Falls, Schnabel brings a fresh vision to cinema and makes you eager for his next move.
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Steve G. | March 15, 2008 4:10 PM
These movies are good, but you are forgetting the kinds of movies that ignore studio's expectations and go straight for both the hearts and minds of what makes us all human. Every soul has that one connecting vision that, in perhaps one or two movies per decade, is indescribably transferred onto film via deep-felt acting, a stunning script, crisp editing and the kind of visual directing that can only be described as necemic. A good example, for instance, is the film that studio execs said would be impossible to make: Police Academy Four: Citizens on Patrol. Now THAT was straight genius.
Zach | March 13, 2008 2:08 PM
Rian Johnson: I defy you to find a better recent debut than "Brick." He could be the next Christopher Nolan if he plays his cards right. We'll see how "The Brothers Bloom" turns out, but on the strengith of "Brick" alone, I think he'll be a real force in the next five years.
Ian Ruffian | March 9, 2008 12:16 PM
Here are my favorite contemporary revolutionary directors:
Todd Solondz
Terrence Malick
Jim Jarmusch
M. Night Shyamalan
Michel Gondry
Alain Resnais (although he´s not a part of Hollywood and has been around for a very long time)
Terry Zwigoff
andy | March 8, 2008 10:12 PM
hey it's robert rodriguez not richard... asshole
Christian | March 7, 2008 6:27 PM
Guillermo Del Toro- For Pan's Labyrinth alone he deserves high praise for his rule-busting.
Sean Penn- Yes, THAT Sean Penn. The Crossing Guard, The Pledge, and especially Into the Wild are rule breakers and personal creations. Jack Nicholson has done some of his most emotional and best work with Penn.
Quentin Tarantino/Richard Rodriguez- Nowadays, they're inseperable. Yeah I know the rap on these guys is that their glory days are behind them. Screw that. Sin City ain't perfect, but it's visuals are groundbreaking. As for Q, The Kill Bill duo thrilled and took risks no other filmmaker's been willing to try. Grindhouse broke so many rules it's in its own category.
Mammatus | March 6, 2008 7:32 AM
Todd Solondz, David Cronenberg, Takashi Miike, John Waters.
Chris Price | March 6, 2008 6:27 AM
Absolutely agree with you Peter.
I'd have to humbly add:
Darren Aronofsky
Alfonso Cuaron
Ang Lee
David Fincher
Paul Greengrass
Andrew Dominik
J.A. Bayona
Guillermo Del Toro
David Gordon Green
Christopher Nolan
Todd Field
Todd Haynes
Fernando Mereilles
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Craig Brewer
Brad Bird
Peter Jackson
Spike Jonze
Michel Gondry
Anton Corbjin
Baz Lurhman
Joe Wright
Wes Anderson
Danny Boyle
Noah Baumbach
Tamara Jenkins
Jake Kasdan
Judd Apatow
Michael Moore
and oddly enough, Ben Affleck
Wasn't sure if I should include some others who may truly belong to previous generations but still continue to challenge us, such as Lynch, Cronenberg, Tarantino, Linklater and Soderbergh. Also, I know its a bit soon to include Affleck, Bayona, and Brewer, but each of their first films were so impressive to me that I can't help but mention them here. For the record, I did not like Black Snake Moan.
SeattleMoviegoer | March 6, 2008 5:24 AM
if Paul Thomas Anderson and Wes Anderson are the great white hopes for today's movies, i'll be content to stay home. i'm looking for those with intelligence and skill and the basic ability to tell a story. this pair of Andersons are wildly overrated and smugly pretentious.
Marty J | March 6, 2008 3:36 AM
David Fincher gets missed out by everyone once again. Heathens!
mothra22 | March 6, 2008 1:50 AM
Don't forget Wes Anderson. He knows what he wants and in my opinion its great.
chompy | March 5, 2008 11:04 PM
Quentin, Kevin Smith, Gus Van Sant
joe | March 5, 2008 10:38 PM
Guillermo Del Toro, if he keeps progressing at the rate he's been working
TheAlwaysClassyMaynard | March 5, 2008 8:46 PM
I agree with PTA and Schnabel, but I'd add Todd Haynes as well. Oh, and The Coens, I guess. Their hits outweigh their misses.
christ | March 5, 2008 7:13 PM
wes anderson
Anonymous | March 5, 2008 6:38 PM
Alfonso Cuaron and Christopher Nolan.
JasonTHX | March 5, 2008 6:05 PM
Wes Anderson, Danny Boyle, Craig Brewer (Though Peter might disagree with that one), Judd Apatow (yes, he's that good), David Fincher, David O. Russell.
mavericksrock | March 5, 2008 5:38 PM
Great choices! I would add:
John Sayles: The geographic range of his films, from Colorado (Silver City) to Florida (Sunshine State) to Alaska (Limbo) to Texas (the classic Lone Star) to Ireland (The Secret of Roan Inish) to an unnamed Latin American country (Men With Guns) to Alabama (his latest, Honeydripper), and more, allows him to tell many stories and provide insights into the human condition. His commitment to making his films on his own terms is admirable indeed.
Todd Haynes: His distinctive vision is present in all of his films, and I especially appreciate his collaborations with cinematographer Ed Lachman in Far From Heaven and I'm Not There. The fact that Haynes, his casting director, and his cast of I'm Not There won the Robert Altman Award at the Independent Spirit Awards testifies to how Haynes' collaborative instincts bring out the best in those with whom he works.
David O. Russell: With Spanking the Monkey, Flirting With Disaster, Three Kings, and I Heart Huckabees, Russell's work so far reflects his maverick spirit. I remember watching Spanking the Monkey at the Nickelodeon Theatre in Santa Cruz when I was an undergrad and looking forward to future films from Russell.
I will also go out on a limb and suggest Sarah Polley. Away From Her confirms her potential as a filmmaker, and her future body of work as a director and writer could be excellent.
International revolutionary: Three cheers for Wim Wenders! Wings of Desire is my favorite foreign film of all time, and Wenders' range is evident in his forays into documentaries like Buena Vista Social Club and his approach to the modern-day West in Don't Come Knocking.
Documentary revolutionaries:
Barbara Kopple and Errol Morris deserve applause. Documentarians can be revolutionaries as well. The Thin Blue Line is my favorite documentary of all time, and Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing was terrific. I also salute Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern for their documentary The Devil Came on Horseback. I will be watching for the next Sundberg/Stern documentary.
bornonthe4thofjuly | March 5, 2008 1:33 PM
Vincent Gallo truly deserves more credit. Both of his films are original and heart-wrenching. He needs to make more!