Originally Posted by duggie walker
i don't want to get into the childish stuff about nolanites and whedonites. It's kind of pathetic. They're both good directors. Bay has his strong points too. But anyone who knows anything about film-making would concede that all of these people have handled extremely complex productions successfully and that takes talent of some kind.
But it concerns me that some people seem to think directing is just about the visual. As nicolas roeg - a great cameraman himself - once famously said, "any c*** can take a pretty picture".
In fact, in some senses, camera placement is the least of a director's job, as that is the dp's area of concern. Some directors have a very strong idea of camera placement, some don't. It wouldn't be seen as odd, or weak, on set to simply approve or amend the dp's set-ups.
The job of a director is really to martial resources effectively.
In pre-production, a good director must have a coherent concept for the overall look and design of the film. Nolan is very good at this.
He must have the ability to analyse the screenplay and effectively work with the writers to a shooting script. Whedon is good at this.
They must be able to assemble a capable team and cast actors appropriately.
They must then create an environment in which those actors give of their best. If they've cast well, there's not much to be done. They must deal with and address any friction within that cast should it arise.
On set, they must solve logistical problems (within budget and on schedule), and block scenes (though the ad's tend to martial extras and invent background action). Bay is good at this stuff.
In post, they respond to initial edits; to the composer's work; to the fx team. The more knowledge of these they have, the better. Basically, they answer a thousand questions a day. They make decisions in line with their original concept. The more of those decisions they get right, the better the film.
So the requirements for directing are intense but it's more about making choices from the options that your department heads present you with.
Very few directors are brilliant at everything. Some may come from a cinematographic or design background (ridley scott, say) but be decidedly mediocre when it comes to analysing a screenplay (see prometheus). And ultimately, it is more important that a films's screenplay and performances work, than that it "looks" nice. There are many visually strong bad films and some very good films shot in amateur fashion.
Nolan is very good on concept. He casts well and chooses a good team. If a location is well-picked, or a set well-designed, the film will "look" good. I'd say, personally, that he is less good at filming action sequences and that he's weak on screenplay detail. Inception was a vastly over-complicated film, imo, in which he actually didn't find a way to visually convey his story; hence all the very long expositional speeches. I don't actually like pfister's photography that much but that's a matter of taste.
Whedon is obviously strong on script and creates a very good atmosphere amongst his cast and crew. He is, i think, more concerned with content than look but i'd say that's the right way round. As yet, he doesn't have the gravitas of nolan or the conceptual weight. But he knows and loves his subject matter.
Bay - well, he's probably better than both of them technically. And i bet he's a damn good businessman, which - in hollywood - is a vital skill. But his subject matter is immature and he doesn't seem to have much ambition to illuminate the human condition. That's fair enough; but it doesn't really matter how great a director you are, you need to make great films, which he hasn't, imo.
Film is a collaborative medium. One person doesn't make a film; not the ones we're discussing here, anyway. To reduce the task down to squabbles about individual men is to severely underestimate it and illustrates only ignorance.
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