I love watching movies and I have a passion for really good film making and storytelling. The biggest passions in my life outside of family and friends are movies and music. The artistic elements of those things can be both inspiring and worthy of a change or evolution in world view. I've learned a lot about the world, others, and myself through both of those art forms and I've also gotten a lot of entertainment value from them and at the end of the day, isn't that the reason those things are so popular?
I don't really remember how "Director Day" started as a "thing". Tanner and I talked a lot at work about our love of movies. Compared likes and dislikes, spent time spewing quotes back and forth at each other and throwing in the occasional Christopher Walken impression. ("I remember as a child....picking fruit...off...my grandmother's lemon...tree") Chris and I had also spent time watching and talking about movies over the years, and we were able to turn each other on to aspects that the other hadn't considered. I convinced him that film was art and could be watched over and over to pick up more detail or to find different points or subtlety (my main argument being "you wouldn't only listen to an album you love once would you?") He convinced me to start following directors more than actors to get a better sense of the art through a body of work presented by the artist (filmmaker). I suppose I thought it would be a good time to get together with a couple of friends and watch movies one Saturday afternoon. I do remember our first DD and that it was Stanley Kubrick we held up for consideration on that day that birthed what I would now call a beloved tradition in my life.
Kubrick was a natural starting point I guess. He isn't exactly an "old master", but he bridged the gap from the old school factory of Hollywood movie making to the era where the director would become king and have much more control over the actors and story telling. Censorship was starting to fall off and a stark and heightened sense of the world was being allowed more and more. Traditions could be taken on. Sacred cows and institutions could be examined and picked apart and even parodied without fear of having a production shut down. Kubrick pushed the limits at times and probably moved film making more towards honest art as much as anyone could during the 1960's.
From there we moved on to different eras, different styles and different genres. Chris' first effort was to highlight his favorite director, David Lynch. His love of the surreal and almost psychedelic bend of Lynch films was on full display as he brought us "Blue Velvet" and "Lost Highway" and eased up on us a bit with the politically charged study of American culture/politics "Wild At Heart". The pattern had been set in that there didn't have to be a pattern. Mainstream films as well as non-traditional film would work. It was obvious after the Lynch day that we would be free to subject our friends to movies and directors off the beaten path. We could expose each other to different kinds of films and try to help each other understand our preferences and share conversation about what we liked or disliked. We would be sharing a part of our passion and interests with other people. We were/are a truly captive audience for one another and no matter how challenging it could be at times (ie, The Brown Bunny), we all seemed to welcome the experience. To allow ourselves to see something in a new or different way or even more importantly, to open ourselves up to a movie we may otherwise never consider watching.
Tanner's first endeavor was Roman Polanski. In his notes, Tanner says "Polanski was a left field choice for me. The only film I had seen of his was The Pianist. I assumed Freddy and Chris weren't well versed with him either. I had always known his name was renowned in the industry, and in choosing him I would open us all up to his filmography. So, I thought "Fuck it. If the movies suck, then at least we know." It was quite the opposite." (Rosemary's Baby was an absolute revelation!) Now, the gauntlet had been thrown down. In only three days, we had evolved from wanting to share a movie experience with our friends to challenging our friends to exploring uncharted territory together. This also marked what would become how we conduct DD moving forward. We would have a rotation. We had each shared a director, so what next? We could have left it at that, but I decided that I would go again and from there we took turns. Myself, then Chris, then Tanner. Other than having two "special" days devoted to Star Wars (the original trilogy) and
John Carpenter, we have held on to our rotation.
We don't really have "rules" and even the name "Director Day" isn't truly indicative of what we can do with our day when it comes around. I have went outside the box a couple of times, devoting one of my days to character actor Harry Dean Stanton and another to Christopher Guest as I used one of my three selections on a film that he was in (Spinal Tap) but didn't direct,which was sort of a celebration of the "mockumentary". I also had a "BBS" day to celebrate the beginning of the independent film company. Chris held a day for one of his favorite actors, Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Personally, I think we all like the idea of being able to go outside the box when we want to. To last, an entity has to maintain freshness and interest. We have largely avoided the big name modern directors (such as Spielberg, Tarantino, Scorcese, Nolan, etc), but recently Tanner broke out the Coen Brothers, so he was the first to choose a director that none of us were very familiar with (Polanski) and the first to choose an obvious, modern filmmaker. Having few rules will probably yield some very interesting and engaging days in the future.
Just using my own preconception, I would say that I was probably the first to give us the most conventional and truly mainstream and accessible filmmaker with Cameron Crowe. It's still one of my favorite days that I have hosted. The three films (Almost Famous, Say Anything, Vanilla Sky) I chose are all dear to me and I just wanted to share them. At heart, I really just want to watch movies with my friends and since I loved these so much, why wouldn't I want to spend my day immersed in my interests with two people that I wanted to spend time with? Chris followed suit by going with one of his favorites, Wes Anderson. Another day, when we all knew that the director had a special place in the heart of the host. Who doesn't love Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums? The most challenging day, without a doubt, belongs to Chris and his choice of Vincent Gallo (and the aforementioned The Brown Bunny). I'm of the opinion that it's a good thing to be challenged and Gallo's films certainly do that. Chris also shared facts about Gallo's life and his other interests which added a little mystique and oddity to the day. This was truly a step outside of conventional film making and a bit of a risk for Chris. I think Tanner and I passed the "test". I could appreciate what Gallo brought to the table and how he pushed his audience to the edge of what was acceptable or interesting and maybe even what could be construed as art. It was a day that sparked conversation and in my opinion, the days where we spend some time talking about the film or the filmmaker instead of just moving on, are the best kind of DD's. Tanner came close to this also with his choice of independent movie maker Jim Jarmusch, which also turned out to be an interesting day. "Dead Man" may be Johnny Depps most under appreciated film. We learned that we were safe. We could challenge our friends with the unconventional and not come away feeling like we had disappointed anyone. It's one of those things where we are all open minded enough to engage our friends and take the ride (for better or worse....and so far, always for the better) together.
I guess to start towards wrapping this up, I want to give kudo's to my peeps for being who they are. It's one thing to know some movies and know some directors, but being able to put the two together and see an emerging trend in style is an added benefit of Director Day for me. Everyone has heard about how great Fellini, Kurosawa, and Lumet are, but I had only seen a couple of movies between the three of them. Tanner exposed me to those directors and although I may have come to them eventually, I may not have and for that this whole endeavor has been worthwhile, if we never got together again. Overall, I'd say that Tanner has probably done the most for my appreciation of foreign movies, which I had previously not had much experience with. Chris has done a great job of bringing some oddity and a surreal nature (Gallo, Cronenberg, Lynch, Hitchcock) to some of our days. I welcome those things, as I want to break out of my own safety net and find new avenues of film to explore. I'd like to think that I have educated and expanded Chris and Tanner's horizons also, with directors like Franklin Schaffner and John Ford and exposure to American originals like the BBS films (Head, Easy Rider, The Last Picture Show).
When will this end? I don't know. I think when it does, it will likely be organic. I can't see us just deciding to end it, especially since we don't put much of an emphasis on any day being time critical. We generally like to not go more than a couple of months between DD's, but we have had a couple of long spells. We have also had some rapid fire dates too, where we were inspired to follow up as soon as possible! As long as my friends want to continue to spend a Saturday with me, watching movies, I'll be game. Oh, and I'll have the crock pot BBQ or taco bar fired up and ready! Who's up next!
