It’s never really an easy task to pick out a single film as its director’s masterpiece. What makes a film a “masterpiece”? And can’t a filmmaker have more than one masterpiece? Sometimes, the critics agree over a specific film as the director’s best while the viewers and even other filmmakers choose another film. Sometimes, the filmmakers themselves have different opinions regarding their best films. Francis Ford Coppola, director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, said that his favourite movie that he made was The Conversation (1974). Citizen Kane (1941) is often considered as the greatest film ever made, but Orson Welles always claimed that he made better films, and considered The Trial (1962) to be the best film he made. It’s safe to say that the choices can be subjective.
With that being said, the greatest filmmakers always make this question trickier to answer, as they provide us with an array of supreme works that are all praiseworthy. Some filmmakers (the likes of Kubrick, Scorsese, Tarkovsky) have made four or five great films that many directors don’t even reach the level of in any of their films.
So, here are some great films that have been overshadowed by their directors’ -arguably- best works.
1- The Straight Story (1999) by David Lynch
Overshadowed by: Mulholland Dr., Blue Velvet, Eraserhead
David Lynch is one of the greatest directors of all time, a position he established by his masterpiece Mulholland Dr. (2001), one of the most beautiful and haunting works of art in the history of cinema. A masterful artist who developed his own characteristic, surreal style, he redefined the neo-noir genre, and his films have always been ones that inspire awe, thought and turbulence.
All of these elements make The Straight Story a very un-Lynchian film; the film was released by Walt Disney Pictures, it was given a G rating (the only Lynch film to get that rating), and Lynch didn’t participate in writing the screenplay for the first time in his career (though his long-time partner Mary Sweeney was a co-writer). And yet, the film is an absolute joy and delight to watch.
It tells the true story of Alvin Straight, who in 1994 drove a lawn mower from Iowa to Wisconsin to make amends with his ill brother. Shot along the actual route taken by Alvin Straight, the film contains an eloquent simplicity and emotional elegance that are heart-warming and surprising. As the plot progresses, one keeps anticipating the dark, horrific twist that would be a signature David Lynch mark, but it never comes, and Lynch deserves immense credit for the sense of control and professional discipline he displays here.
Although it faltered in the box office, the film achieved critical acclaim and was nominated for the 1999 Palme d’Or. Richard Farnsworth, who was suffering from bone cancer during the shooting of the film, received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He committed suicide at the age of 80 the following year because of the pain he suffered from his terminal cancer.
David Lynch called The Straight Story his “most experimental movie”, which is a magnificent oxymoron, to say the least.
2- After Hours (1985) by Martin Scorsese
Overshadowed by: Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, GoodFellas
This is perhaps the most underrated film on this list, mainly because Scorsese has made so many great films over the years that many of his very good films were only decent in comparison, even though they’re better than most of the films we watch nowadays.
Paul Hackett is a word processor who obviously finds his job to be very tedious. After working hours, he spends his evening at a coffee shop, reading Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. A girl named Marcy notices this and explains her interest in Henry Miller, as well. They have an interesting chat, and Marcy ends up giving Paul her phone number. Later that night, Paul returns to his apartment and, after some thought, decides to call Marcy and pay her a visit. Surely it would be a positive change to his miserable daily routine, wouldn’t it?
The events that take place following his decision are a downward spiral that is intensely dark, hilarious and frightening, mostly because it is fairly plausible and realistic. Scorsese maintains the pressure exerted relentlessly, providing a strong, gripping sense of paranoia, and thus creating a remarkably searing satire. There is a magnificent scene at “Club Berlin” that is very Kafkaesque and is heavily inspired by Franz Kafka’s parable Before The Law (from his novel The Trial). As Scorsese explained subsequently, the parable reflected his frustration towards the production of The Last Temptation of Christ (which was cancelled by Paramount only weeks before shooting), for which he had to continuously wait, as Joseph K had to in The Trial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcVMQy95aM8&spfreload=10
The result is a pure practice in filmmaking; the film doesn’t have a message to send or a statement to make, it doesn’t even have a plot. Scorsese commented on the experience, “I thought it would be interesting to see if I could go back and do something in a very fast way. All style. An exercise completely in style. And to show they hadn’t killed my spirit.”
For his “exercise”, Scorsese won the Best Director Award at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival.
3- 2046 (2004) by Wong Kar-wai
Overshadowed by: Days of Being Wild, In the Mood for Love, Chungking Express
“Love is all a matter of timing. It’s no good meeting the right person too soon or too late. If I’d lived in another time or place … my story might have had a very different ending.”
2046 has been slightly undermined by the fact that it’s technically a sequel in Wong Kar-wai’s loose trilogy which includes Days of Being Wild (1991) and In the Mood for Love (2000), his most critically acclaimed work. Surely, it would be a better experience for the viewer to watch those films before watching 2046, but that has unfortunately effaced how 2046 stands out on its own as a very great film.
The film runs in parallel directions: A science-fiction writer works on a new novel, 2046 (a reference to the hotel room number in which he meets his one true love in In the Mood for Love), as three different women enter his life throughout the years. The film works in a non-chronological order, as it jumps from one story to the other and even into the fictional world of his novel, creating an exhilarating blend of reality and fantasy.
The hypothesized science fiction story is quite marvellous: Set in the future, a train leaves to 2046, a mysterious location where people go to find their lost loved ones and recapture their memories. It is said that nothing ever changes in 2046, but nobody knows for sure, because nobody ever comes back from 2046 … the shot sequences in which the fictional story is represented through the film are mystical and enchanting.
In a way, this is the ultimate Wong Kar-wai film, his most radical work in terms of style. The storytelling is unique and somewhat bizarre, the scenes (with the help of his long-time collaborator, cinematographer Christopher Doyle) are visually stunning, and one of the greatest achievements of the film is how it creates the perfect balance between being orientally thematic but ideologically universal, between preserving its identity and having the capacity to reach out to everyone. The works of Wong Kar-wai have always been my favourite portrayals of love and loneliness … but what do I know? Maybe I’m just a hopeless romantic, you should decide for yourselves.
4- Masculin Féminin (1966) by Jean-Luc Godard
Overshadowed by: Breathless, Vivre sa vie
There’s no way to describe Jean-Luc Godard, fans and critics alike, other than groundbreaking. One of the spearheads of La Nouvelle Vague, or the New Wave movement, which was first discussed in an article titled The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: The Camera-Stylo in 1948, and stated that “cinema was in the process of becoming a new means of expression on the same level as painting and novels.” It argued for innovation, experimentation and using film as a canvas for the artist to express their thoughts. Cahiers du cinema co-founder and film theorist André Bazin was a prominent, influential figure in the movement. The most defining and glaring practical application of this theory was Godard’s masterpiece Breathless (1960), which was simply revolutionary with its boldness and unexpected use of jump cuts. It challenged the conventional traditions of Hollywood and French cinema at the time. A new rebel has emerged.
Godard went on to make amazing films, but for some reason Masculin Féminin remained (and remains to be) out of contention as one of his best, most likely because perhaps it was a bit too experimental for many viewers and critics.
The film consists of various incidents, cultural references and interviews in ’60s France, all tied together by the central story of a romantic relationship between Paul (Jean-Pierre Léaud) and wannabe pop singer Madeleine (Chantal Goya), in spite of their different tastes and political ideologies. They were “the children of Marx and Coca-Cola,” as the film claims in one of its episodes.
The striking feature of the film is how it is formed of a series of vérité-style interviews, in which the camera would focus on the reactions and responses of the actors and actresses to the questions usually imposed by Paul. Cinéma vérité, or “truthful cinema”, is a style of documentary filmmaking in which the filmmaker’s presence can be felt and they make clear, visible artistic decisions.
The performance by Jean-Pierre Léaud is nothing short of brilliant, and one of Madeleine’s friends, Catherine, provides a fascinating character study.
Admittedly, the film is not one to be immediately loved, but I have little sympathy for those who lament the experimental tone of the film. How could one not be dazzled and intrigued by such an audacious, creative work of art?
There’s an iconic scene in which Paul is at the cinema theatre. He watches the film on the screen with wonder and interest as he explains, “We’d often go to the movies. We’d shiver as the screen lit up. But more often, Madeline and I would be disappointed. It wasn’t the film we had dreamed of, the film we all carried in our hearts, the film we all wanted to make … and secretly wanted to live.”
Maybe this isn’t the film we all want to live, but Masculin Féminin is a powerful incentive for us to go and find it.
5- Naked (1993) by Mike Leigh
Overshadowed by: Life Is Sweet, Secrets & Lies, Vera Drake
Mike Leigh is the most consistently good filmmaker I’ve ever seen, a level of consistency I haven’t witnessed with the legendary likes of Woody Allen and Bernardo Bertolucci, to name a few. This can be easily deduced from the fact that he was nominated for seven Academy Awards for five different films. It’s nearly impossible to single out a film as his best.
However, I can say with a clear conscience that this is my favourite Mike Leigh film. It’s probably my favourite film on this list, as well. Leigh is famous for his portrayals of middle-class workers and families, but Naked is a lot more different. This film is a brutal reality check, a gut-wrenching catharsis.
It tells the story of Johnny, an intelligent, educated but terribly bitter man who flees Manchester after a sexual encounter with a married woman. He travels to London and seeks refugee with his ex-girlfriend who lives there.
Something quite awful has happened to Johnny earlier in his life, which rendered him cynical, violent, argumentative … there are signs of depression and abuse, but the film never clearly addresses the cause, and quite rightly; it would’ve provoked the wrong emotion, as the film isn’t asking for the viewer’s pity or fear.
He wanders around the city, wrapped in a black coat, taking part in conversations and situations with numerous characters, but he’s always bullish, always trying to take advantage of them, always trying to win arguments … as the scenes unfold we can see the level of his intellect and knowledge, and the stark contrast between his knowledge and his social status is a scathing indictment of the British society in the aftermath of Thatcherism at the time.
One of his encounters results in a long shot that is one of the most beautiful scenes I’ve ever watched in films (the kind of scenes which make you fall in love with cinema), in which he argues with a security guard about how man is at the brink of extinction, citing the Bible, Chernobyl and the solar system as evidence in an astonishingly well-written rant. Mike Leigh is known for his improvisation and lengthy rehearsals, almost all of the film’s dialogue was written as it is filmed, which makes the film’s screenplay all the more extraordinary.
The film was met with criticism for some of its harsh and violent depictions, but that really misses the point. Mike Leigh said that “the criticism comes from the kind of quarters where political correctness in its worst manifestation is rife. It’s this kind of naive notion of how we should be in an unrealistic and altogether unhealthily over-wholesome way.” He won the Best Director award at Cannes Film Festival in 1993.
Johnny is played by David Thewlis, generally known for his role as Remus Lupin in the Harry Potter film series. This has to be the best performance in his career, as he creates a character that is complex and challenging beyond imagination. Thewlis also won the Best Actor award at Cannes.
This is a painful film to watch. It is supposedly a black comedy, but the laughs always halt in your throat, they never reach the surface. It is a film that leaves you broken, shattered, void … even when Johnny is presented with a second chance, a faint glimmer of hope, he meets it with desperation and blasphemy, he comprehensively rejects it. Life has dismantled his will and desire.
However, it is also a crucially important experience. We have to be aware of the existence of such people in society. It displays an anarchic world in which the characters have completely fallen out of the picture, have been completely forgotten, a world which cannot be trusted … a world that tragically shows how under our layers of friendships, families, jobs, homes, values and interests, we’re all so very vulnerable, pathetic and naked.
chichiteddu 