For me the Director is the ultimate storyteller. He, or she is an artist who is the extension of the writer’s vision.
Filmmaking all begins with a story, the moment the writer hands over a brand new, shiny package bound in plain looking cover with brass brads collectively called the Screenplay, or the Script.
These days of course feature film scripts, or screenplays are send via e-mail saving everyone lots of time and money, but before and during actual production everyone follows the printed script format.
What is the Screenplay?
Short answer: it's the story encoded in cinematic terms from which it can be told in multiple ways by many artists and professionals in the production team.
In our limited human experience surrounded by infinite Universe and another equally infinite subatomic world we cannot even see, with humanity operating in highly restricted environment, no matter who we, or where we are everyone has a story.
This works on every level for everyone individually, and when told with equal amount of passion and authenticity everyone’s story is equally fascinating, whether it would be Odysseus, Queen Victoria, Lincoln, Einstein, Beethoven, or a guy next door.
Of course, this gets much better when we have several stories intertwined together, as human beings rarely live by themselves, so whenever we tell a story about someone there is usually a unique world around them interacting with our hero, or a heroine.
Consequently, this is where the director takes over which is to tell a story about someone’s life and about others using his set of tools, the actors and the cameraman with his crew, and the production designer.
Screenwriting and filmmaking are all about storytelling in the most fascinating, exciting and revealing way with good taste, drama and authenticity, and the director’s job is to perform the function of a storyteller on the highest level and make everyone around him comfortable.
My favorite directors are no longer alive today, but there are still few left and they are the icons of cinema among the elite group of people numbering less than few hundred in the world.
Who Are Great storytellers?
Answer: John Ford (Stagecoach), Alfred Hitchcock (Rear Window), Anthony Mann (Winchester ‘73) Howard Hawks (Rio Bravo), Sam Peckinpah (Straw Dogs), Ingmar Bergman (The Virgin Spring), John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy), Robert Siodmak (The Crimson Pirate), Bo Widerberg (Elvira Madigan), David Lean (A Pasage to India), Michael Curtiz (Casablanca), Stanley Kubrick (Barry Lyndon), Akira Kurosawa (Roshomon), Luchino Visconti (Death In Venice), Michelangelo Antonioni (Blow-Up) and many others from the past.
Above films are few examples of great storytelling. They have a unifying theme to all their work which is good taste and the ability to tell a great story and capture it on the screen with all other filmmakers on their team.
From living directors several come to mind Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather), Woody Allen (Midnight In Paris), Steven Spielberg (Schindler's List), Milos Forman (Amadeus), James Cameron (Titanic), Milos Forman (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest), Andrzej Wajda (Young Girls of Wilko) and other directors for whom it's all about well-told story.
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