Directors' masterpieces in relation to their overall oeuvre

[King Prendergast]

I've found that often what I consider a director's masterpiece is a very singular entry in their canon and often very different formally/tonally from their other films. Examples of this phenomenon would include Godard's Contempt, Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage, Fleischer's Mandingo, and arguably even Vertigo. Do you agree with this assessment, and if so, what accounts for it? Can you think of any other examples?

[Awesome Welles]

I hadn't really thought about it until this moment but now that you mention it the phenomenon seems to ring true. I don't think I have seen enough to be able to pick out any one masterpiece from a filmmaker's oeuvre as I have not seen it all though I can agree that Scenes from a Marriage is my favourite Bergman and Vertigo certainly one of my favourite Hitchcock's though I would also put that with Shadow of a Doubt - a film I find to be very different from the Hitchcock films I have seen. Contempt is certainly up there in the Godard stakes for me, though I think I have to see more of his later work to really make that choice.

Then again by the same token I think that David Lynch's films are all very similar tonally and count Blue Velvet my favourite, whereas the real stand out in his oeuvre is The Straight Story. Sometimes I wonder if F for Fake is my favourite Welles, though have a hard time admitting to it as I love Ambersons so much, though F for Fake is the least Wellesian film going. Another one that strikes me is The King of Comedy, probably my favourite Scorsese.

[Michael Kerpan]

I can't think of very many directors whose work I value highly who have made only one "masterpiece". Ozu, Naruse, Bunuel, Rivette (and many others) have all made lots of master works.

[King Prendergast]

I can't think of very many directors whose work I value highly who have made only one "masterpiece". Ozu, Naruse, Bunuel, Rivette (and many others) have all made lots of master works.

I think there is a distinction to be made between "masterworks" and an artist's single "masterpiece." Surely someone like John Ford made 20, 25 films which could be considered "great", 7 or 8 which could be called "masterworks," but only one can be called the definitive masterpiece of his career. Of course determining which one that is is always a fun debate. [/i]

[Awesome Welles]

I have to agree with Michael many directors have made many masterpieces but I also think that most of us will have a favourite, but in some cases as with me and Welles that choice is some times too hard.

[Barmy]

To some degree I actually have a preference for directors who do the same thing over and over (e.g. Antonioni, Rivette, Jancso, Meyer, Duras and, more recently, Sokurov). That is a characteristic of an "auteur". Your Godard and Bergman picks are among their most "popular" works. But I don't see them as uncharacteristic.

[King Prendergast]

To some degree I actually have a preference for directors who do the same thing over and over (e.g. Antonioni, Rivette, Jancso, Meyer, Duras and, more recently, Sokurov). That is a characteristic of an "auteur". Your Godard and Bergman picks are among their most "popular" works. But I don't see them as uncharacteristic.

Well Contempt is by far the most conventional narrative Godard ever constructed, and Scenes is Bergman's most down to earth, un-metaphysical film, in my opinion

[essrog]

I'll grant you that the despair at the heart of Vertigo makes it tonally different from Hitchcock's other works, but thematically and stylistically it has quite a bit in common with the rest of his ouevre, particularly Rear Window -- the handicapped male protagonist becoming obsessive in his voyeurism; the male wanting to "make over" the female according to his ideal of the perfect woman; long stretches without dialogue, using just the protagonst's POV shots to tell the story, etc.

I guess what this case tells me is that one film can feel different than a director's other works, but further analysis can show that it's very much of a piece with them.

[Bananafish]

Firstly, there's obviously no hard and fast "rule" to this. Secondly, critical consensus of certain directors' masterpieces is hard to come upon.

I think Fanny och Alexander is just as deserving of the title "masterpiece" - what separates it from Bergman's other work in terms of tone and construction? If anything, it's F&A's bringing together of all previous elements in Bergman's work into a concise, overwhelming vision that makes it stand out.

[King Prendergast]

Another example may well be De Palma's Scarface. I think it was Kael who said that Scarface was a film for people who don't like De Palma films.

[Mr Sausage]

I've actually been contemplating the opposite recently:

Speaking of David Lynch, I've been watching/rewatching him rather obsessively these days and I find more and more I'm having trouble singling out certain movies, either as favourites, or exceptional achievements, or major works--which is to say, I cannot rank them. I've come to see his movies as constituting a complete imaginative world, with each film contributing to and developing a total experience. They may do so in different ways, and certainly the individual experience of this or that particular film is vital; but Lynch's achievement is akin to something I feel about Kafka: one hardly thinks The Trial, or The Castle, or Amerika, or any of the stories can as individual works stand evenly next to Ulysses or In Search of Lost Time. Yet, when we stand back and consider the totality of Kafka's creation, or rather his creation in general, he seems no less essential or comparable to Joyce and Proust; his imaginative world is no less dense.

With Lynch, too, I sense the major achievement is the creation of an original world with an original atmosphere, an original texture--and that it is the experience of returning to this particular world through the doorway of his films that constitutes the prime aesthetic pleasure of watching him. Hence when I reflect on his films I have trouble isolating favourites on purely aesthetic grounds since my prime pleasure involves entering a complex mood which hovers just above the individual works, and to which each film is an important contribution (rather like a large single fruit or vegetable supported and fed by a number of tasty tubers).

And, yes, The Straight Story, tho' definitely a-typical, has a palpable Lynchian feel, primarily due to its floating quality.

[mattkc]

What matters here, I think, is not so much how a filmmaker's best films are different, but how they relate to the rest of their oeuvre, and how they take the artist's work in general to new heights. Like Michael, I can think of very few truly great filmmakers who have only one "masterpiece." The only really obvious one I can think of is Jack Chambers, but I'm going solely by consensus since The Hart of London is the only film of his I've even seen. Some filmmakers, though, do have one or two masterpieces that quite clearly stand above the rest of their work. Generally I'd be dubious of such assertions since for most people that would be, say, The Searchers for Ford, or, heaven-forbid, M for Lang. So by no means do I think that any of these supposed "uber-masterpieces" can be generally agreed upon, obviously. But for me, many of the best films aren't the ones that sum up a director's work, or the ones that push forward into new territory, but those that do both. Sticking with Ford and Lang, my two examples would be 7 Women and The Indian Tomb/The Tiger of Eschnapur.

[miless]

Another example may well be De Palma's Scarface. I think it was Kael who said that Scarface was a film for people who don't like De Palma films.

ugh... I don't like DePalma's films, but I loathe Scarface.

what about those filmmakers who only ever create one brilliant gem, when the rest of their films are generally sub-par?
My example for this would be Gregg Araki. Mysterious Skin was brilliant (touching and disturbing without pandering to the lowest common denominator) when all (or most) of his other films are merely trash (not that they're bad, they're just nowhere near the power and beauty of MS).

And I think anyone would be hard-pressed to choose 'one masterpiece' from someone like Robert Altman. He made so many films that were so all over the place that choosing one would be damned near impossible.

[domino harvey]

I don't understand why it's necessary to boil a director's oeuvre down to one "masterpiece"-- any director worth studying is going to have something to offer in most if not all of his films, some more than others, but there isn't going to be one stone monument amongst a smattering of park benches.

[miless]

I don't understand why it's necessary to boil a director's oeuvre down to one "masterpiece"-- any director worth studying is going to have something to offer in most if not all of his films, some more than others, but there isn't going to be one stone monument amongst a smattering of park benches.

the good old Auteurist argument (that a minor work from, say, Renoir, is worth more than a major work from a lesser talent)
That's definitely how I feel about my favorite filmmakers.

[King Prendergast]

McCabe is Altman's masterpiece. That is easy as far as I'm concerned.

[domino harvey]

No, Altman's masterpiece is the Gingerbread Man [/Armond White]

[miless]

McCabe is Altman's masterpiece. That is easy as far as I'm concerned.

so you're just going to throw MASH, Nashville, The Player, Short cuts, The Long Goodbye, Brewster McCloud, California Split, 3 Women, A Wedding, Gosford Park, etc., etc., etc. in the trash?

[domino harvey]

McCabe is Altman's masterpiece. That is easy as far as I'm concerned.

so you're just going to throw MASH, Nashville, The Player, Short cuts, The Long Goodbye, Brewster McCloud, California Split, 3 Women, A Wedding, Gosford Park, etc., etc., etc. in the trash?

Guy, the book is shut on Altman. There's only one movie anyone needs to see by him, only one masterpiece. Time to move on the next masterpiece and still plenty of time to watch Family Guy!

[King Prendergast]

McCabe is Altman's masterpiece. That is easy as far as I'm concerned.

so you're just going to throw MASH, Nashville, The Player, Short cuts, The Long Goodbye, Brewster McCloud, California Split, 3 Women, A Wedding, Gosford Park, etc., etc., etc. in the trash?

No one is saying that, and indeed my favorite Altman is probably Brewster McCloud. But if you were to preserve one Altman for posterity, looking at his oeuvre with cold objectivity I would have to pick McCabe.

[mattkc]

any director worth studying is going to have something to offer in most if not all of his films

Well, I think that's the most important thing that's been said here, and what we should remember.

[domino harvey]

No one is saying that, and indeed my favorite Altman is probably Brewster McCloud. But if you were to preserve one Altman for posterity, looking at his oeuvre with cold objectivity I would have to pick McCabe.

But why would you preserve only one film to represent a director? Is there a practical application for limiting an entire career to one work?

[King Prendergast]

No one is saying that, and indeed my favorite Altman is probably Brewster McCloud. But if you were to preserve one Altman for posterity, looking at his oeuvre with cold objectivity I would have to pick McCabe.

But why would you preserve only one film to represent a director? Is there a practical application for limiting an entire career to one work?

No, there is no practical application, it is merely a thought experiment, but thinking of artists in terms of their masterpieces is a convention of art history/criticism for centuries. I don't think there is anything inherently reactionary about engaging in such an activity.

what about those filmmakers who only ever create one brilliant gem, when the rest of their films are generally sub-par?

I think that's called the Michael Cimino award.

[jbeall]

I don't know that you could even single Godard out for one masterpiece. Contempt is certainly one of my faves, but Vivre sa vie, Alphaville and Weekend would certainly have to be in the discussion.

[domino harvey]

I would say it's a false assumption that a director will have a single masterpiece. I won't pretend to know everything about everything so perhaps this is common practice in Art History classes, but I'm sure you could find art scholars who abhor the practice.

To use a director mentioned in this thread, I think Bergman is one of the greatest of directors, but I'd be hard-pressed to single out a single film to explain why he's worth watching. Maybe ten would be an arbitrary if adequate number, I could give you ten films that act as a key to unlocking Bergman, or at least a running start. But if I give one film, that one film would only make sense in relation to the other nine and then really the entire oeuvre. So the "Pick One" game becomes a waste of time.

And the Pick One Game also stops us from recognizing "masterpieces" from directors who aren't worth studying. Some great films are great not within the relationship to a director or writer or actor's other films, but for some other aspect. I'm not a strict auteurist, I engage in several approaches simultaneously and pick the one that best serves the matter at hand. I like to think I'm open-minded enough to entertain contradictory readings and approaches to a text.

Wasn't it Bordwell (maybe he just linked to it from his blog) who mentioned the problem with any list (and ranking a film as a "masterpiece" is really just making a list with only one entry) is that it's meaningless without being accompanied by a list of all films seen? I can say "Clearly the Werner Herzog's masterpiece is Grizzly Man" (and I'm certainly guilty of making bold hyperbolic statements like this [though not this haha] here and elsewhere) and someone reading that might go "What a provocative choice, clearly his idiosyncratic selection reflects a new approach to this master!" but then if I told you I've only seen two Herzog films, Grizzly Man and Even Dwarves Started Small, would you find my choice daring or ill-informed? You say clearly Altman's best film is McCabe and I jokingly said it was the Gingerbread Man-- I was kidding, but have you seen that film? Have you seen every Altman film ever made to make a broad judgment of an entire career? Is seeing the entire career-retrospective just to be able to declare the "best" film even a worthwhile goal? Once you've arrived at the "masterpiece," what next? The end, because labels mean you don't have to think about something again. If something's the best, it goes in a drawer and you move on to the next thing. I prefer a more fluid relationship with the films I see.

To be honest I reacted to this thread because it reduces watching films to a game, which is a topic well-suited for a message board where people hate cinema, like the .com forum, but not here.