Who is the best Italian director?

[Ichirou]

Wow, just making this poll I realized the incredible contribution Italy made to cinema in the 20th century.  It's no wonder Italian cinema is easily my favorite in world cinema.

[Mr. Gundam]

I know it's the cliched and predictable response, but I have to go with Fellini.

[CajoleJuice]

I've only seen two out of all the movies listed. 

[demi]

Fulci

[Ichirou]

My problem with Fellini is that the first film I saw of his (lent to me by a humanities professor during my first year of college) was Satyricon.  Holeee crap, that film freaked me out.  I avoided his stuff for years after that.

Then in 2004, I had the good fortune of seeing Lo Sceicco Bianco (The White Sheik) in a cinema in the small mountain town of Urbino in Italy, and it was a wonderful experience.  I sought out his other work after that and really came to appreciate him as a director.  I still wonder wtf that humanities professor was thinking by introducing me to Fellini via something as disturbing and bizarre as Satyricon!

EDIT: demi, I can't believe I forgot Fulci.  Extremely influential director in the horror and suspense genres, made one of the greatest non-Romero zombie films ever.  Added him!

[max_cool]

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[TVC15]

Um, going by what I've seen, an incomplete knowledge (compared to how much French shit I've watched), my FAVORITES (I do not know them all well enough to say best) are Antonioni and Pasolini.  Leone and Bertolucci are really good, too, but although, yes, they are Italian directors, I think their work is more worldly minded and indluenced, so in a ranking of sheer Italian-ness, I kinda have trouble placing them.

[Ichirou]

Who are your favorite French directors, TVC?  I haven't seen nearly as much as you, but I like Jean-Pierre Melville's and Jacques Becker's movies best...

[TVC15]

Who are your favorite French directors, TVC?  I haven't seen nearly as much as you, but I like Jean-Pierre Melville's and Jacques Becker's movies best...

I like Godard the best, but the most accepted answer has got to be Truffaut.  Melville doesn't really have as much material as those two, but he's great as well.  I like Godard because, although he is not as consistent, he's not consistent because his total weird streak and tendency to do unconventional and experimental things.  So even if a movie of his isn't one of his best, you can usually count on it having one wow thing in it.  I really like Truffaut, too, but what can I say?  I like unconventional things.

[Van Cruncheon]

i have not seen anything by antonioni, only fellini and pier pasolini (thanks, film classes). the genre directors you chose are innovative and interesting, but i dunno if they shaped cinema the way, say, fellini did.

[Van Cruncheon]

also, i hate roberto benigni

[Ichirou]

Johnny Stecchino and The Monster are pretty funny, IMO.  Benigni's a much more talented physical comedian than his American counterpart (Jim Carrey), plus the man writes and directs his own movies.  That takes undeniable skill.

I would say that Fulci was influential in bringing copious gore to horror movies...he was the first one to really delve into that grotesque aspect of the horror film, even more than George Romero did.  He even added that aspect to his (I think one and only) Western, Four of the Apocalypse, which features one of the characters dying, and a deranged miner cutting his buttocks and cooking and feeding them to his unknowing companions.

Antonioni's stuff is becoming more widely available Stateside on DVD, and I recommend L'Avventura and L'Eclisse.  The whole ennui of being young, rich, and good-looking...ahh, how I wish I could relate.

I think Fellini is the most widely accepted answer, though I fully expect Solo to come in here and mention Sergio Leone as his choice (I'm tempted to choose Leone as well, honestly).  I just think Fellini's movies got more and more artificial and worried about style over content as he got older...the simple pleasures of a comedy like The White Sheik were overtaken by his desire to present bizarre stuff like Satyricon.  I just find his stuff to be very inconsistent.

[TVC15]

I am reminded of when Willco tried to say that Leone wasn't an Italian director, but even though that is a silly point of view, I think there is logic in disqualifying him from the running.  He's an Italian director, but his most well-known pictures are all international productions.

[Ichirou]

The Dollars trilogy were not really international productions (Italian production company, Italian director, Italian composer, Italian scriptwriters, Italian film crew, mostly Italian cast except for Eastwood, Van Cleef, Wallach, and Kinski, designed primarily for Italian audiences, filmed exteriors on location in Spain, but interiors were all filmed in Rome), and those are clearly his most famous pictures.  His only international productions are Once Upon a Time in the West and Once Upon a Time in America.  Once Upon a Time in the West was a Paramount picture, and Once Upon a Time in America was funded by Arnon Milchan's production company, which I think is Israeli.

I find the fact that Willco doesn't consider Leone an Italian director to be pretty funny, though.  You sure he wasn't just trolling the BK beast or something?

[Polari]

I was split between Visconti and Antonioni, ended up going with Visconti.

[TVC15]

Also, Pasolini is mentioned by name in a Morrissey song, so he wins automatically.

[Polari]

Yeah but so is Visconti.

[TVC15]

Yeah but so is Visconti.

Could be considered a double entendre, though.  Tony Visconti produced the album.  The Pasolini mention cannot be contrued in such a way.

[Polari]

Yeah but so is Visconti.

Could be considered a double entendre, though.  Tony Visconti produced the album.  The Pasolini mention cannot be contrued in such a way.

Seeing as he references Anna Magnani, who starred in Visconti's Bellissima in the next line, it seems fairly obvious he's referring to the director rather than the producer.

[TVC15]

But still, the song was produced by a Visconti.  We will never knew if Morrissey put that reference in there as a wink to his producer.

[Ichirou]

I can't make up my mind on who to vote for on my own poll.  :'(
 
Also, what Morrisey song mentions Pasolini?  Title plz.

[TVC15]

You Have Killed Me.  It has both the Pasolini and Visconti mention.

[youtube=425,350]Tc8p3wJhmJ0[/youtube]

[drohne]

antonioni. as much as i wanted to vote for pasolini.

[Solo]

Leone. Yeah, you knew it was coming, but I can only speak to what I love most, and what I have seen. Leone is my favorite filmmaker ever, and about half that list I havent seen anything from (Visconti, Zeffirelli, Rossellini, Pasolini, Salvatores, Fulci, by my count).

So Im going with Leone. But since that is so obvious to anyone that knows me, Ill offer up a Top 3, just to see who would reign supreme for me if not for Leone.

3. Tornatore
2. Fellini
1. Leone

[bud]

i've only seen a handful of the listed movie, but since this is a thread about italian cinema i might as well ask it here.

there's this italian movie about a man and a woman, who's name is julia, who fall in love, but the guy is cheating on her. he's having sex with this younger woman. he tells his gf/wife (i forget) that he has to go work or something, but he ends up having sex with this girl in her parent's house iirc because they're away. the girl julia finds out through his friends i think, and won't let him back in house anymore. she eventually leaves him and goes to live with her mom. so the guy tries to get back with her through the girl's mom.

eventually the two get back together and have a baby (a boy, i think), but the movie ends with the girl, julia, jogging and there's another guy who happens to do the same and they kinda look at each other, and perhaps this means that she'll end up cheating on him now. the end.

does anyone know which movie this is?