Who is the Greatest Screen Writer and Director of all time.

[Kirby101]

Avatar was the least original of Cameron's movies and honestly the least memorable. I don't think I could provide the names of five characters in that movie without Googling them.

Jakescully, sexy alien chic, sexy older science lady, bad corporate guy, badder military guy, sexy pilot lady...

[Johnathan]

Jakescully, sexy alien chic, sexy older science lady, bad corporate guy, badder military guy, sexy pilot lady...

Wow! Perfect score!

[Somecrazyaussie]

Yes - George Miller wrote his movies as well, right? Mad Max, Babe and such.

Also, George Romero in the horror genre changed cinema - did he write his films?

George Miller does write his screenplays. Usually in tandem with another collaborator. Miller co-wrote Babe, but he didn't direct it. He did, however, direct Babe: Pig In The City.

George Romero also wrote his films.

Again, as great as Romero is, he'll never get wider recognition due to many considering him a genre director, sadly.

[Somecrazyaussie]

Brian De Palma doesn't get enuff recognition these days.

Hard when Hollywood has pretty much blacklisted him.

[Amadeus Arkham]

This is probably going to be a controversial answer considering the allegations against him, but to my mind I think Woody Allen would probably be a contender for greatest screenwriter and director. I also dig Stanley Kubrick who did co-write his scripts.

I’m also quite partial to Wes Anderson(who also happens to be the grandson of the Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs) and Paul T. Anderson myself.


Nolan would also come to mind, but I don’t think his scripts are always strong.

[Kirby101]

I forgot about Kubrick writing his scripts, which is a very big oversight on my part, since I am an emormous Kubrick fan. I guess his direction is so dominating I lost sight of his writing. (Or I am old and forgetful )
I would put Kubrick as in the mix for greatest director, so he definitely should be here for best writer/director.
Woody Allen is a brilliant writer, some of the best scripts ever and some of the funniest, but he is a journeyman director and I don't think he ranks up their in that category. He does a great job of bringing his scripts to life though.

[ChrisIII]

De Palma did some uncredited script doctoring on Star Wars as well. Originally the opening scroll went deeper into Star Wars's backstory, mentioning the Old Republic, Jedi etc. De Palma simplified it to mainly set up the scene about to take place (paraphrasing): There's a civil war going on,Rebels have the plans to an evil Empire's battle station and are on the run....stuff about the Jedi, Republic etc. is covered later on by Obi-Wan, Tarkin etc. anyway.

[Kirby101]

It's not that I don't think DePalma is a good director, I just don't think he is great. Many of his early films like Dress to Kill and Blow Out very derivative and I think Scareface is vastly over rated. He also has a few stinkers (which might or not be his fault) I thought his best movie was the first Mission Impossible. Not degradating him, just saying for me he is not in the mix for greatest.

I am finding many posts here are about directors not getting their due, rather than that they should be considered as the single greatest writer/director of all time.

[Castle]

You lost me right about the part where Guardians of the Galaxy was more cringe-worthy than a film where the macguffin is lterally called "unobtainium" (did no one point out to Cameron how stupid that was?) and that Avatar had good acting across the board (all I can say is that Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, and Michelle Rodriguez were the only ones delivering and the latter two were the only characters I personally cared about).

I did explain why, with the put falls of comedy. Also how can we say Cameron made stupid decision of macguffin/unobtanium and not GOTG Star Lord doing a dance off for a villain? Would it also not be fair to say GOTG made also a stupid decision for been a movie about galaxies but had no deep galaxy sci-fi commentary?

I did not watch GOTG and think, let me find out about more about the Milky Way or Andromeda galaxies. GOTG was fun but not sci-fi enough. However I wont say that is stupid, it only feels stupid now in contrast to your perception about James Cameron's Avatar, a movie that did have some earth environmental themes.

(Also, have to say that Avatar's use of mocap is kinda irrelevant to whether the story worked.

Its relevant because the actors still had to act through that. if the actors had not put it the performances, the motion capture wont have worked and that means the movie wont have been as it was. there would not even be a movie.

I mean, Jurassic Park was movie that revolutionized the craft with its special effects in a way that dwarfs Avatar,

Avatar was the next step in special effect evolution after Jurassic Park. Saying Jurassic is more revolutionary is like saying a space odyssey 2001 is more revolutionary than star wars 1977. these movies are not rivals but leaps resting on the back bone of the other.

Look up the original Toy Story if you'd like another example of how to make a movie that outlasts the technology.)

Avatar has outlasted every other 3d movie that was meant to be a visual experience. after the success of avatar, studios jumped on the 3d band waggon but they never captured what Avatar did right. this is why it was easy for Avatar to reclaim the number 1 spot from Endgame after it got a second release because it is only avatar that had a genuine artistic 3d visual experience in the last 15 years. Lucas tried to do that with star wars episode 1, but he ended up making that movie's reception was off.

Lastly I will not be replying anymore about any james cameron and a marvel related film like GOTG on this thread, since I know the two sides have been going at it ever since Cameron said, MCU movies are cgi tiring which stirred up controversy in the marvel base and he got the box office record back from Endgame, which only deepened the rivalry. I will rather much talk about about the likes of Billy Wilder and Alfred Hitchcock.

[Castle]

It also depends what you are looking for. Which is all a matter of personal preference. Wilder made more human movies with well told stories. He was also a brilliant comedy director. His movies did not have as much visual flair, the story telling was mundane at times, which was a positive to keep them grounded. There are few who were as masterful as Hitchcock in visual impact. His camerawork, and style are exceptional. Obviously better than Wilder in that respect. But that doesn't make him the better director. So as i said, it comes down to personal preference. Is Double Indemnity better than Strangers on a Train or Vertigo? I think Wilder's best work is his comedies. But it is hard to compare them to Hitchcock's suspense pictures. It's apples and avocados.

Double Indemnity > Vertigo.

Something I never liked about Vertigo, Jimmy Stewart character trauma of been afraid of heights was never deeply explored or properly resolved, or should I take it that his obsession with Kim Novak's character that ''came back'' from the dead cured it?

The Hitchcock film I would say may be better than Double Indemnity is Spellbound. Spellbound approached psychoanalysis and the themes of trauma better than Vertigo did.

[Scott Taylor]

In Vertigo, the fear of heights was shown as a temporary thing caused by an incident of trauma, where Scottie sees a fellow policeman fall to his death and then Scottie almost falls himself, being left hanging on for dear life until he falls. Scottie later got over the vertigo when a homicidal rage at being used and manipulated overtakes him, when he discovers just how much he had been duped into being a part of the scheme to murder Madeleine Elster and simultaneously that the woman he loved had never actually existed. The movie is darker than dark in where it takes the Scottie character from the beginning being a good cop to the end where he basically caused a woman's death. In the beginning, he is on a ledge trying his best to survive and in the end he is on a ledge contemplating suicide. And the bad guy got away with the whole thing!

But thats Hitchcock for ya. Like Edgar Allen Poe, he enjoys and revels in the suspense and the journey to despair. A Wilder Vertigo movie would have been completely different, with more comedy elements and a more clean and resolved ending I suspect, because that was more his style.

[Kirby101]

Double Indemnity > Vertigo.

Something I never liked about Vertigo, Jimmy Stewart character trauma of been afraid of heights was never deeply explored or properly resolved, or should I take it that his obsession with Kim Novak's character that ''came back'' from the dead cured it?

The Hitchcock film I would say may be better than Double Indemnity is Spellbound. Spellbound approached psychoanalysis and the themes of trauma better than Vertigo did.

I just picked some Hitchcock films I liked. The point is whether Hitch's suspense films were better than Wilder's? Overall I say they were, and Hitch was a much better visual director. But Wilder was a better writer and better at comedies. (especially since Hitchcock only did two or three).
That is why the comparison is so hard.
It would be easier to just compare writer/artists within a single genre. Comedies? Wilder or Allen? And so forth. (as one example)

[Jim Kelly]

Scorsese is not a screen writer? is he? Neither was Hitchcock? Though Hitchock was so good at capturing specific unforgettable moments in films, you will easily think that he wrote the script to those scenes himself.

Hitch gets writing credits for some movies, just not the ones you know. His wife, Alma Reville, was the scenarist on many. There are some scripts he was stuck with filming, when he didn't have any power as a director, but once he proved himself and had full autonomy over his movies, he had control over every facet of the movie, including the script.

I had to read THE DARK SIDE OF GENIUS: THE LIFE OF ALFRED HITCHOCK, by Donald Spoto, for my film studies course on Hitchcock when I was in university--and in that book, Spoto describes the writing process on some of the big movies. Hitch would have a writer like John Michael Hayes come out to his house and they would hash out the script together. Hayes was the typist but the whole shape of the story, how it was plotted, would come from Hitch.

Moreover, one of the big things about Hitchcock we know is that he storyboarded all his movies, long before other people were doing that, as he had done graphics for advertising copy before he got into film. Because of so much studio interference in his early years, he was determined to have as much control as possible and he would only shoot the scenes that were in his storyboard. He didn't do coverage. So if a studio wanted to take away a movie from him, they would only have so much footage and they couldn't make it up in the editing room.

For Hitch, he had already made the movie in his head. Filming it was the boring thing--just a matter of putting it all together as he had already envisioned it.

[WebLurker]

Lastly I will not be replying anymore about any james cameron and a marvel related film like GOTG on this thread, since I know the two sides have been going at it ever since Cameron said, MCU movies are cgi tiring which stirred up controversy in the marvel base and he got the box office record back from Endgame, which only deepened the rivalry. I will rather much talk about about the likes of Billy Wilder and Alfred Hitchcock.

So, you get to fire off one last response and then tell me to zip it without getting the same chance you did?

[ed2962]

I forgot about Kubrick writing his scripts, which is a very big oversight on my part, since I am an emormous Kubrick fan. I guess his direction is so dominating I lost sight of his writing. (Or I am old and forgetful )
I would put Kubrick as in the mix for greatest director, so he definitely should be here for best writer/director.
Woody Allen is a brilliant writer, some of the best scripts ever and some of the funniest, but he is a journeyman director and I don't think he ranks up their in that category. He does a great job of bringing his scripts to life though.

Yeah, it's hard for me to imagine him directing someone else's script and being able to see that it's him directing.