Film personality test

I saw this at Gerry Canavan’s blog and thought I’d throw it out here. Comments have been dead here lately so add your results below…

Basically, you look at the list of films by the various famous directors and pick which film you think is the best from each director. We may all agree that these are great filmmakers, but do we agree on what their greatest works are?

From the original blog entry:

It’s not strange to disagree about movies that are wildly different, and there are surely a few random movies that are very polarizing. What I find most interesting is which movie people consider the best movie from a particular director, as it is usually very telling and polarizing in a different way, so to this point I will propose a new personality test where you reblog your favorite movie from each of these directors:

1. Joel Coen: No Country for Old Men, The Big Lebowski, Fargo, The Hudsucker Proxy, Miller’s Crossing, Raising Arizona, etc
2. Wes Anderson: The Darjeeling Limited, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tennenbaums, Rushmore, Bottle Rocket, etc
3. Hal Ashby: Being There, Shampoo, Harold and Maude, etc
4. Kevin Smith: Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Dogma, Chasing Amy, Mallrats, Clerks, etc
5. Quentin Tarantino: Grindhouse, Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, etc

Gerry added a few more…

6. Stanley Kubrick: 2001, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, Dr. Strangelove, Lolita, etc.
7. P.T. Anderson: Boogie Nights, Hard Eight, There Will Be Blood, Punch-Drunk Love, Magnolia.
8. Errol Morris: The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War, Mr. Death, Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, Gates of Heaven, etc.

And I’ll stick a few in too…

9. Alfred Hitchcock: Vertigo, Strangers on a Train, North by Northwest, The Birds, Psycho, Spellbound, Notorious, etc.
10. Martin Scorsese: Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, After Hours, Goodfellas, The Age of Innocence, The Departed, etc.
11. Hal Hartley: The Unbelievable Truth, Trust, Simple Men, Amateur, Henry Fool, etc.
12. Jim Jarmusch: Stranger Than Paradise, Down by Law, Mystery Train, Dead Man, Ghost Dog, Broken Flowers, etc.

And because these lists are woefully in need of some women…

13. Sofia Coppola: The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette, etc.

Here’s me: No Country, Rushmore, Harold and Maude, Chasing Amy, Reservoir Dogs, Paths of Glory, There Will be Blood, Fog of War, Notorious, After Hours, Henry Fool, Ghost Dog, Lost in Translation.

12 Comments

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On December 2, 2008, arthur Adams said:

Here’s me:

Cohen: Big L
Anderson: Rushmore
Ashby: Being There
Smith: Chasing Amy
Tarantino: Resevoir Dogs
Kubrick: Dr. Strangelove [maybe my favorite movie of all time (besides Back to the Future...heh)]
Anderson: Punch Drunk Love (although TWBB is fucking amazing enough to unseat PDL if I saw it a few more times…)
Morris: Fast, Cheap & Out of Control
Hitchcock: Rear Window
Scorcese: meh…not a fan
Hartley: Surviving Desire
Jarmusch: Down by Law
Coppola: Lost in Translation

I’ll add my own too:

Woody Allen: Crimes & Misdemeanors
Steven Soderbergh: The Limey
Charlie Chaplin: City Lights
Spike Lee: Inside Man
Ang Lee: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

A few more female directors:

Nicole Holofcener: Lovely & Amazing
Amy Heckerling: Clueless
Mary Harron: American Psycho
On December 2, 2008, Therem said:

Damn, I WISH I could respond in kind, but I feel that for my choices to be meaningful at all, I would need to have actually watched all or at least most of a director’s movies, and I am nowhere close for a lot of these people.

However, I can say that Raising Arizona is my favorite Coen Bros. movie out of the 5 or 6 I have seen, and I agree with Arthur about Dr. Strangelove being best Kubrick movie (although I haven’t seen Paths of Glory).

Re: women directors, what about Jane Campion (An Angel at My Table, Sweetie, the Piano), or Antonia Bird (the immortal cannibalism film Ravenous)?
On December 3, 2008, G C said:

Sadly, those were Kottke’s additions, not mine. If they were mine, they’d undoubtedly been about Batman adaptations or something equally silly.
On December 3, 2008, G C said:

Though upon further reflection the Batman adaptation thing clearly is the *true* personality test.
On December 3, 2008, casey said:

Cohens: Barton Fink

Wes: The Royal Tennenbaums

Ashby: Being There

Smith (barf): Mallrats

Tarrantino (really?): Jackie Brown

Kubrick: The Shining (simple childhood attachment)

PT Anderson: Boogie Nights

Morris: The Fog of War

Hitchcock: All tied

Scorsese: Raging Bull

Hartley: Not sure. I think Trust.

Jarmusch: I hate him.

You forgot Copola: Apocalypse Now

and Bergman: Wild Strawberries

and Herzog: Agiurre: The Wrath of God

and Uwe Boll (kidding).
On December 4, 2008, smoothie said:

Coens: serious – Miller’s Crossing (one of 2 films I’ve seen to use the word “Yegs”), comedy – Big Lebowski

Wes Anderson: Rushmore

Ashby: Harold and Maude

Kevin Smith: Chasing Amy

Tarantino: Kill Bill (vol 1)

Paul Thomas Anderson: Punch Drunk Love

Scorcese: serious – Goodfella’s, light – After Hours

Hal Hartley: Trust

Jarmusch: Ghost Dog (though, “good restaurant English” and “You t’rao de ball at me, I t’rao the ball at you” are almost enough to make me pick Down By Law)

Sofia Coppola: Lost in Translation

Woody Allen: serious – Stardust Memories, comedy (as absurd as it is to confine Allen to these as two distinct categories) – Annie Hall

on to the Lee brothers:
Spike: Do the Right Thing
Ang: The Ice Storm

Kubrick is nearly impossible: A Clockwork Orange, 2001 and Lolita are all so good in different ways

And honestly, Sofia Coppola’s the best you could do for “great women directors?” American cinema may be woefully underrepresented here, but what about–

Claire Denis: probably Chocolat, but I need to chew on L’Intrus some more
Mira Nair: Monsoon Wedding
Barbara Kopple: Harlan County, USA
On December 4, 2008, billsimmon said:

I can name lots of great women directors (Allison Anders and Agnieszka Holland are two more that come to mind just now) but the point of this test (it seems to me) is to pick iconic filmmakers that a wide swath of the film-going public have not only heard of, but can name a number of their films. Mira Nair is amazing, but my bet is most Candleblog readers can’t name more that one or two films from her oeuvre without the help of IMDb.
On December 4, 2008, arthur said:

I guess that point (picking iconic filmmakers that a wide swath of the film-going public have heard of) was lost on me…Coz I wouldn’t consider Jim Jarmusch, Hal Ashby or Errol Morris to be part of that category…I think a lot of people wouldn’t necessarily know more a couple of films by them without looking them up.

If we really wanted to pick well known filmmakers then what about Steven Spielberg? Robert Zemeckis? Michael Bay? Nora Ephron?

Answers: Duel, Back to the Future, Transformers, You’ve Got Mail.
On December 4, 2008, billsimmon said:

Arthur, on your first point, I guess I have a high opinion of Candlebloggers’ film knowledge. Still, I’d argue that each of the three directors you mentioned have left larger footprints in the average film-nerd’s consciousness than Claire Denis, Mira Nair or Barbara Kopple.

Regarding Nora Ephron — she’s really known more as a writer than a director. I don’t particularly like any of the films Ephron has directed, but When Harry Met Sally and Silkwood are great and she was the screen-writer on those, so do they count?

Spielberg: For serious Spielburg I have to go with Munich – a woefully under appreciated but brilliant film. For light Spielburg, I’m all about 1941. Action/adventure: Jurassic Park.

Zemeckis: please.
On December 5, 2008, arthur said:

Yeah Munich was pretty effing great. I also thought (cough) The Terminal was kind of underrated. So sue me.

Robert Zemeckis is responsible for Back to the Future. And for that, I must bow, because it is one of the most perfectly entertaining films of ALL TIME. But yes, besides that…ew.
On December 5, 2008, smoothie said:

Well, as much as I loved Lost in Translation, Sofia Coppola’s made 3 films total, the first one of which was merely passable entertainment, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a large-percentage of movie-going Americans couldn’t name even one of her films. I’ll grant she fares better among “the average film-nerd.”

Talented, yes. Iconic, not.
On December 5, 2008, billsimmon said:

Talented, yes. Iconic, not.

Yes, well this speaks to the underlying problem w/r/t women on these lists. There are plenty of talented women filmmakers, may of whom have been named in this thread, but there are precious few (if any) iconic ones, even from the perspective of film nerds.

I think sexism explains part of the problem. Women tend to get the short shrift in film theory and history of film classes (for example) despite the important contributions they made to the craft (Alice Guy-Blaché, Lotte Reiniger, Maya Deren, et al.). So I think there’s a tendency to downplay the relevance of women in filmmaking in general.

I wonder if that sufficiently explains the disparity or if there are other, subtler factors at play (that may also help to explain the lack of, say, women guitar heroes, despite the plethora of very talented female guitar players).