"Tyrannical" directors

[HipsterTrash]

Originally Posted by Stargrove

Michael Winner

Helen Mirren once remarked "she was just another plaything to director Michael Winner".

Actress Marina Sirtis had to film a rape scene in a very cold garage in Death Wish 3. Winner reportedly wouldn’t allow Sirtis to sit up or put a coat on during the freezing temperatures. Also, in The Wicked Lady right before filming her whipping scene, Director Michael Winner cut her costume off with a pair of scissors and told her to get on with it.

Christina Raines said she cried every day on her way to work with the "maddening" Michael Winner.

There's honestly so much more craziness documented about this dude but honestly he's one of my go-to directors for consistently enjoyable movies.

Chris Sarandon said he treated the the disabled people from The Sentinel like trash.

[Stargrove]

Originally Posted by HipsterTrash

Chris Sarandon said he treated the the disabled people from The Sentinel like trash.

Yeah heard that too.

He insisted on using actual people with deformities against the producers wishes & then went on to treat them pretty ungraciously.

[dancerslegs]

By all accounts, Sergei Bondarchuk was one hell of a tyrant on the set of War and Peace. Apparently drove everyone like a man possessed. Which, under the circumstances, seems like the only way to get a production on that colossal of a scale made.

To be fair, he drove himself at least as hard as everyone else. He suffered not one, but two heart attacks in the process of shooting, including one where he was clinically dead for several minutes before reviving.

[dkelly26666]

Victor Fleming sounds like a douche.

He seems little remembered, now, because he worked mainly in the early era when directors were just considered crew, mostly, and didn't get famous like the big movie stars very often. Most of his films were just workmanlike and undistinguished, for the most part. But, he worked on two of the biggest ever: "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone With the Wind". On "Oz", he famously got angry with Judy Garland on a few occasions. And in one instance, when she'd laughed at the cowardly lion in a few blooper takes, Fleming slapped her in the face, made her cry, and then demanded, "NOW, get back to work!"

He is also claimed to have been pro-Nazi, and against the Allied Forces removing the Nazis from power. That would certainly explain a lot of things.

He was a sadistic jerk who was so angry he wound up dropping dead of a heart attack at just 59 years old, in 1949.

[dkelly26666]

People say Roman Polanski had a rep for being a little tyrant. People used to call him Napoleon, LOL.

[Jegærn]

I have absolutly zero respect for directors behaving like tyrants.

David O Russel is one of the worst. I have seen clips of him on youtube, and it's like watching a spoiled child not getting what he wants. I can't believe actors actually wants to work with pricks like that.

It's all about the lack of intelligence. Communicating and being nice and proffesional to your crew and actors will get you loyalty and hard dedicated work from those working for you. It's psychology ABC.

[Jay H.]

I don't know that he's "tyrannical", but has anyone ever seen Stephen Hopkins reacting to Ruben Blades talking to Good Morning America? This was on the set of Predator 2, and Hopkins was trying to film a scene with Blades before the sun came up. It used to be on YouTube.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-...561-story.html

[snipemonkey]

Originally Posted by Jegærn

I have absolutly zero respect for directors behaving like tyrants.

David O Russel is one of the worst. I have seen clips of him on youtube, and it's like watching a spoiled child not getting what he wants. I can't believe actors actually wants to work with pricks like that.

It's all about the lack of intelligence. Communicating and being nice and proffesional to your crew and actors will get you loyalty and hard dedicated work from those working for you. It's psychology ABC.

Agree with everything except the "lack of intelligence." You can be an extraordinarily intelligent person and also a monumental prick. The one thing doesn't preempt the other.

It's just basic Bully Psychology: Always strike first and with overwhelming force so that no one can ever hurt you -- Keep yourself in a position of power no matter what. Deep insecurity will lead people to act in horrifying ways far more often than lack of intelligence and the arts are, unfortunately, a raging cauldron of florid neuroses.

[DrWally]

Originally Posted by MisterPilgrim

Surprised Michael Bay hasn't been mentioned.

Bay's an interesting one. There are many actors (Will Smith, Megan Fox, Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck) who've disparaged him and his personality, and yet other prominent actors think that he's a consummate pro, whatever you think of his movies. Sean Connery, not a man who suffered fools gladly, apparently respected Bay a lot. And Bay does work with the same technical crew time after time, always a useful litmus test when it comes to determining how a particular director treats people that he works with. So who knows?

My own nomination for this category would be John Moore, on the basis of his epic rages and tantrums on the Flight of the Phoenix documentary that's on the DVD but sadly not the Blu-Ray.

'Did they not see the plane in the ******* sky!!?'

[reedzkee]

Originally Posted by HipsterTrash

David O Russell is a notorious jerk. I Heart Huckabbes wasn't the only time he's snapped and it sure as hell wasn't the last.
And you wait, the guy will probably be cancelled. there's been lots of things said about his character.

I've had a few ADR session with Russel. He absolutely tore in to me for the stupidest thing. I basically wasn't the adr mixer he thought I was.

His way of directing talent was also more like berating. He got a good performance out of her though.

[Jay H.]

Originally Posted by DrWally

Bay's an interesting one. There are many actors (Will Smith, Megan Fox, Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck) who've disparaged him and his personality, and yet other prominent actors think that he's a consummate pro, whatever you think of his movies. Sean Connery, not a man who suffered fools gladly, apparently respected Bay a lot. And Bay does work with the same technical crew time after time, always a useful litmus test when it comes to determining how a particular director treats people that he works with. So who knows?

My own nomination for this category would be John Moore, on the basis of his epic rages and tantrums on the Flight of the Phoenix documentary that's on the DVD but sadly not the Blu-Ray.

'Did they not see the plane in the ******* sky!!?'

John Moore: boring name, boring filmmaker.

As far as Michael Bay goes...whether he's a sweetheart or a psychopath, can't he keep the damn camera still for more than a few minutes? Sheesh.

[movielib]

Originally Posted by snipemonkey

Michael Mann has a reputation as being a perfectionist and a "dictator," as well as generally an all-around bastard.

I took a screenwriting class one time (more than 20 years ago) that was taught be a guy who had written one or more episodes of Miami Vice and he told us some interesting stories about what an a**hole Michael Mann was.

But then this is pretty common knowledge. I just got through listening to a podcast that had an interview with director Gary Sherman -- who at one time had briefly been in business with Michael Mann and Jonathan Demme in the early 70s in England -- and he called him "one of the most objectionable people he's ever met in his life". He didn't elaborate except to say that he had loads of terrible Mann stories he could tell.

I was actually "directed" by Michael Mann. I was an extra in Public Enemies. I played a (non-speaking) senator in the scene about twenty minutes in when J Edgar Hoover was trying to get funding approved by our Senatorial committee.

We filmed in the Wisconsin State Supreme Courtroom. Mann was explicitly told there could be no smoking but presumably, wanting to be true to the era, he ignored that. We did about fifty takes in one day. Mann told me to take off my glasses and put them down in front of me. Since they were period glasses (true to the era) and they were very uncomfortable, I was all too happy to do that.

He was definitely a perfectionist and did whatever he wanted in spite of Wisconsin laws and rules of the Capitol and the Supreme Court. But I did not see any meanness.

But, of course, my Mann experience was very limited.

[LmaoBR]

Originally Posted by snipemonkey

Agree with everything except the "lack of intelligence." You can be an extraordinarily intelligent person and also a monumental prick. The one thing doesn't preempt the other.

It's just basic Bully Psychology: Always strike first and with overwhelming force so that no one can ever hurt you -- Keep yourself in a position of power no matter what. Deep insecurity will lead people to act in horrifying ways far more often than lack of intelligence and the arts are, unfortunately, a raging cauldron of florid neuroses.

I think it’s a common misconception and all on a sliding scale anyway. You can be an angry prick and be intelligent, but the more control someone has over themselves (whether it be anger or anything else) the better.

[drush9999]

Originally Posted by Stargrove

Michael Winner

Helen Mirren once remarked "she was just another plaything to director Michael Winner".

Actress Marina Sirtis had to film a rape scene in a very cold garage in Death Wish 3. Winner reportedly wouldn’t allow Sirtis to sit up or put a coat on during the freezing temperatures. Also, in The Wicked Lady right before filming her whipping scene, Director Michael Winner cut her costume off with a pair of scissors and told her to get on with it.

Christina Raines said she cried every day on her way to work with the "maddening" Michael Winner.

There's honestly so much more craziness documented about this dude but honestly he's one of my go-to directors for consistently enjoyable movies.

Michael Winner is really mean about Raines on The Sentinel commentary as well.