DYNAMIC DEBUTS

It's surprising how the best of directors did not produce great debuts.  Many great film makers have taken a couple of movies to find their feet and set the bar for their careers. Some of the greats like Hitchcock, Scorsese, Coppola and Wilder didn't hit the ground running. Modern greats such as Nolan, Fincher and Singer made their marks with their second features. There have been plenty of one hit wonders but those that have had glittering careers and great first shots are the unusual ones. Those debut directors that made truly memorable first features are really quite Scarce, let's look at ten of the best of this rare breed.

Citizen Kane-Welles

For many the best film ever made therefore hard to argue against it being the greatest directorial debut of all time.

The Maltese Falcon-Huston

A superb debut that is perfect cinema from beginning to end.

The Sugarland Express-Spielberg

Most would say that Duel was Spielberg's debut but it was a made for TV movie as was Something Evil. His real cinema debut was this road movie with Goldie Hawn playing against type

 

 

A Bout De Souffle-Goddard

Godard's 'none more cool' and highly influential first feature still looks and feels fresh.

 

Knife In The Water-Polanski

Setting the tone for his body of work Polanski arrived with devastating effect

 

Reservoir Dogs-Tarantino

Unforgettable and controversial movie that set the tone and became part of the zeitgeist.

 

Buffalo 66-Gallo

An individualistic renaissance man, Gallo's debut is an

 incredible example of single mindedness

 

Play Misty For Me-Eastwood

Director/actor Clint Eastwood probably surprised everyone with how good and prescient his first feature was.

 

Badlands-Mallick

The not exactly prolific but mercurial Terence Mallick's opening salvo is simply unforgettable

 

Take The Money and Run-Allen

What's Up Tiger Lilly was released three years earlier and was more of an exercise in ingenious editing and over dubbing, Take The Money and Run is Woody Allen's first real movie as director and is as funny as anything he has ever done.

TINTIN THE MOVIE

http://youtu.be/JrrJfV4Y6nE

Fifty years ago TINTIN the movie (Tintin and the Golden Fleece) was released. This film was a reasonable success and was followed by a less successful sequel Tintin and The Blue Oranges.
These were French films starring the Belgian ensemble created by Herge and were original screenplays as opposed to being based on the books.Never the less these were early examples of the 'Comic book to film ' genre.
They are a bit rickety but have a certain charm, which is more than can be said for The adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn.
This rainy afternoon I took some of the kids to the Odeon (£2:60 a bottle of water!) to see the new Tintin movie and with Spielberg at the helm you would have thought that the intrepid Belgian's adventures were in safe hands however the inclusion of Peter Jackson in the process raised concerns. This over rated master of bombast has, metaphorically chucked a spanner in the works and as a result all the characterisation and nuance that Spielberg brings along with his showmanship is obliterated by Jackson's speciality; People running away from stuff, stopping, having a tussle and chasing stuff. That's what all of his major success' involve. 
It's a shame because I, like many. have a soft spot for the Tintin books and to see this big screen treatment turn  all the charm inherent in Tintin into just another CGI blockbuster is disappointing. The most disturbing aspect is the cold dead eyes of the motion captured actors, which give the whole enterprise a flat feel. The most Herge part of the movie are the opening credits which tells a Tintin adventure story  in shadow animation form.
The French Tintin's are not great but they have one thing that the 2011 vintage doesn't have and that's the charm of Herge's Tintin.

http://youtu.be/fdJ0qknitJE

http://youtu.be/jInis43v4TQ

Spielberg’s list.

I was pondering and discussing who the greatest Director was. I choose ‘greatest’ deliberately. Coppola. Hitchcock, Kubrick, Truffat, Welles, Lean all these sorts of names invariably come up in discussion of who’s the best director, but who’s the greatest?

“Greatness is a concept of a state of superiority affecting a person, object or place. The concept carries the implication that the particular person or object, when compared to others of a similar type, has clear and perceivable advantage. As a descriptive term it is most often applied to a person or their work, and may be qualified or unqualified. Application of the terms "great" and "greatness" is dependent on the perspective and subjective judgments of those who apply them-wikipedia.”

Given that assessment I think it very well may be Steven Spielberg

I suppose he is best known for action and Sci Fi; Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Raiders of the Lost Ark and 1941

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqhE7ieH2R8

Minority Report, Artificial Intelligence: AI, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and War of the Worlds

But he’s dabbled in fantasy; Hook and Always
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nrvMNf-HEg

However, what is often surprising is the quality of his so called ‘Serious’ Movies: The Color Purple, Munich, Amistad The Terminal, Catch Me If You Can, Saving Private Ryan, Empire of the sun, Jaws, The Sugarland Express, Duel and of course Schindler’s List.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-wNe68de7Y

He has also Produced for directors such as Eastwood, Scorsese, Kurosawa, Zemeckis, Sonnenfeld, Dante and Craven; Letters from Iwo Jima, Flags of Our Fathers, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Lovely Bones, Shrek, Men in Black, Cape Fear, A Brief History of Time, Band of Brothers, Arachnophobia, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, Joe Versus the Volcano, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Back to the Future trilogy, The Goonies, Gremlins, Twilight Zone: The Movie and Poltergeist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFA4m5B81QA

He’s currently working on future projects as diverse as Tintin, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, Jackie Kennedy, George Gershwin and 9/11.

As a director his name can sell a film to the masses; a concept that only really applies to the independent film goer these days, but years ago the masses would go to the cinema on the basis that it was a Hitchcock or a Capra.

Spielberg. The Greatest?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8MApxKsCyU