I’ll showcase seven film directors who changed the landscape of cinema and filmmaking with their films.
1. D. W. Griffith
D. W. Griffith was the father of cinema, and no matter what people think of him personally, his contribution to the art of filmmaking can’t be taken away. What was his contribution? His contribution was that he almost single handedly created the cinematic language.
Before Griffith there weren’t shots from multiple angles, or film editing as a process of creating time and space. Griffith also showed spectacle, and pushed the rudimentary hand cranked film camera to create cinema magic.
What most people don’t know about DW Griffith is that he averaged about a hundred films a year. No, that was not a mistake. I urge you to quickly go to IMDb and look at his page. He did that for a few years running. That’s how productive this man was, that’s the kind of genius he was. To this day, you’ll never see any filmmaker come close to even matching his output.
Even a Youtuber making one video a week, you’re still only at 52 videos a year. To do a hundred, you’ll have to script, cast, design, film and edit two films every week to get to this level – and all this without modern cameras and computers, or anything modern.
If you ever feel high of your great abilities as a filmmaker, just take a look at DW Griffith’s IMDb page, and be humbled.
2. Charles Chaplin
There have been few characters who can transcend international borders. Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan come to mind. So does James Bond, or the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But those have to be subtitled or badly dubbed.
No single character has transcended borders and spoken to humanity more directly than the tramp of Charlie Chaplin. His genius was he could move between comedy and tragedy in a heartbeat, and you never knew where you were until you were already in it. You were made to laugh, and you were made to cry, and there’s nothing you could have done to prevent it.
Charles Chaplin made many feature length and short films on this character, and you should watch City Lights, The Gold Rush and the Great Dictator to even begin to understand how he was leagues ahead of every other comedy act, and I’m not taking names but you know of whom I speak. He just could do it all, and using pure cinema.
3. Walt Disney
It is quite possible one day people will have forgotten the name of Disney. Today it’s still relevant because of the Marvel films and Disney+, but the force and power it enjoys today stands squarely on the shoulder of the man who started it tall, Walt Disney.
Sidney Lumet once said whatever Walt Disney touched turned to gold, he couldn’t deliver a flop. Somehow this magic rubs off on the company even today. Disney is the equivalent of Apple in the tech space.
Walt Disney pioneered animation, of creating characters that, like Chaplin, could transcend borders and speak universally to generations of children. Even today, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are powerful influences on young minds, and it wouldn’t be so if the original characters weren’t perfect to begin with.
Many have tried, Disney prevails.
4. John Ford
Few outside serious film students will even know the name of John Ford, but he inspired and taught a legion of great filmmakers whose names you do know. Many copy from him, and some even spite him in spite of copying from him at the same time. As a filmmaker, you can’t ignore the influence of John Ford in your film.
I’ve already created a video on John Ford’s contribution to cinema, I’ll link to it below. But if you want to get started, just watch Stagecoach, and you’ll see his brilliance unfold.
5. Alfred Hitchcock
Chances are, if you’re having great ideas for a thriller or horror film, the images you see in your head are children of the seeds Alfred Hitchcock planted.
Like John Ford, he taught a few generations how to make the perfect thriller, the rules of creating suspense and mystery, and most of all, of using the magic of pure cinema to keep audiences spellbound. That’s why his films do so well internationally, and his name is known across the world even where they don’t speak English.
I’ll link to one video I made of Hitchcock that showcases his genius, and it’s available to members of Wolfcrow Lifetime Access. Please check the links in the description below. If you want to study Hitchcock, I urge you to start with Psycho and Rear Window.
6. Akira Kurosawa
Take all the directors whose names have appeared so far in this video, and put them together, and that’s Akira Kurosawa.
A director would be thankful to make one great film in his life. The directors in this list have made three or four great films. Akira Kurosawa could have easily made thirteen great films. Everything he touched was perfect. His films didn’t find the kind of success Disney’s did, but he had to fight the notion Asians couldn’t make films.
Watch anything by him, seriously, but I had to pick, start with Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Ikiru and Kagemusha.
Take any aspect of filmmaking – camera, lighting, actor blocking, acting and getting the most out of them, entertainment, editing – his films are utter perfection. You could spend a lifetime studying just his films and still not learn everything. Which is probably why, in spite of his films being available to study, there have been none like him.
One came close enough, which is why we have a number seven.
7. Steven Spielberg
For a few decades now, Steven Spielberg has shown clearly he has some of the magic of a Kurosawa, with some of the luck of a Walt Disney. He picked the right movies, and his movies happened to make a lot of money.
During the nineties at the time of Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List, it seemed like Spielberg could do no wrong. In his later years he has made greater contributions to cinema through films like Saving Private Ryan and Munich. Even his bad movies are never bad, except Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, an unspeakable monstrosity that might forever mar his legacy as a filmmaker.
Hundreds of filmmakers have found fans, and some trend better now, but the test of time needs to be passed, and these seven filmmakers have passed the test, and that’s something that can’t be taken away from them as long as the art of filmmaking survives.
What about Orson Welles?
How can you tell if you have a good Dp I’ve seen some and they have clip here and there but their reels show merged clips on their reel and its hard to tell if its them actually doing the work from themselves or someone giving them direction hmm?
The same way they’d tell a good director from a bad one!
Ron Hubbard may have been the most prolific scientific fiction writer of all time but I do not think that’s a reason he should be on a list of great writers. People like Stanley Kubrick and Luc Besson, in my opinion, should be on your list.
It’s a list of those who influenced cinema.