1295 The Dead

[FrauBlucher]

... If you asked me which director made one great last film, Huston would immediately come to mind...

The Dead is far and away the best last film of any director with a 40+ year career. The only one that comes close, for me, is Buñuel's That Obscure Object of Desire. But, while Buñuel is effectively revisiting themes he had toyed with before, Huston's last film feels like something completely new for the filmmaker: a quiet chamber drama ruminating on the passage of time and the pretense we can struggle to prop up in social situations and, even, with those closest to us. Whatever changes or additions the Hustons brought to the film version of Joyce's story, they are integrated beautifully.

If you combine his first film with his last, has any director had a beginning/ending the way John Huston had. I can't think of any

[domino harvey]

Mankiewicz started with Dragonwyck and ended with Sleuth (arguably the ne plus ultra of aging auteurs pulling off a miracle in their final film, with apologies to this thread’s subject of course)

[The Curious Sofa]

Sydney Lumet's 12 Angry Men and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is a pretty great first/last combo.

John Huston closed out his career with a run of three films that can be counted among his best.

[FrauBlucher]

I thought of l Lumet but I didn’t mention him with all the TV productions he did prior to 12 Angry Men

[MichaelB]

Yes, technically Alan Clarke’s “debut” was Scum, which is obviously absurd—and in this case doubly so because it was a remake of something that he’d made for television two years earlier.

And Ken Russell’s “debut”, French Dressing, was made two years after Elgar (which was also a long way from his actual debut).

Come to think of it, Krzysztof Kieślowski doesn’t do too badly in the career-bookending features stakes. His first TV feature Personnel (1975) is far less known than Three Colours: Red, but historians now regard it as the first authentic example of the “cinema of moral anxiety”, one of the most important artistic trends in Polish cinema history.

[The Curious Sofa]

I thought of l Lumet but I didn’t mention him with all the TV productions he did prior to 12 Angry Men

I might count them among his feature films if any of them had been released theatrically, like Spielberg's extended cut of Duel, but it appears that all of Lumet's television work prior to 12 Angry Men consists of directing episodes for TV shows. Even The Challenge, the only one-off, is a rejected TV pilot coming in at under 30 minutes. While no doubt a great training ground, I don't see how any of these TV episodes could be described as a debut feature.

[Maltic]

Checked my best first feature-list. Of course, most were hardly 40-film-careers...

Eisenstein (Strike - Ivan the Terrible, pt II)
Vigo (Zero for Conduct - L'Atalante)
Ray (Pather Panchali - The Stranger)
Lewis (The Bellboy - Smorgasbord)
Bava (Black Sunday - Rabid Dogs)
May (A New Leaf - Ishtar)
Lynch (Eraserhead - Inland Empire)
Yang (That Day, on the Beach - Yi Yi)

[The Curious Sofa]

As far as I know, Elaine May's Crackpot hasn't officially been cancelled, so don't write her off yet.

...and I'll add Louis Malle to the directors with great bookend films.

[Maltic]

As far as I know, Elaine May's Crackpot hasn't officially been cancelled, so don't write her off yet.

That would be great. Kind of morbid to include her here anyway.