[quote=“Scarface”]
That’s easy, QT. First, most of Nolan’s movies are adapted from a source material. People praise him to high heavens but he didn’t come up with most of the plot ideas in his movies himself. Second, most of his films rely on gimmicks. Remove the backward chronology from Memento and you’re left with an average thriller. Remove the Joker from DK and you’re left with an average crime film. Thirdly, some of his films are overrated beyond belief. The Prestige? That’s one of the most retarded movies I have ever seen.
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Yeah exactly. When it comes to saying who is a better director, a lot of people are blinded by the fact that a lot of directors do not write their own films. Given that a lot of the people on IMDB are ignorant about what each position is responsible for, they often give the director more credit than is deserved. Also, the writer/screenplay thing - on a lot of occasions, a director will have a bit of input on the writing and suddenly their name appears on the writing credit causing people to think that person wrote it. It’s the same with writing a screenplay, sure it takes something to turn a piece of writing into a screenplay, but the original writer still has to get more credit, unless of course a lot was changed.
Let’s take the top 10 from IMDB’s Top 250:
The Shawshank Redemption (Dir: Frank Darabont)
Stephen King (short story “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”)
Frank Darabont (screenplay)
The Godfather (Dir: Francis Ford Coppola)
Mario Puzo (novel)
Mario Puzo (screenplay) and Francis Ford Coppola (screenplay)
The Godfather: Part II (Dir: Francis Ford Coppola)
Mario Puzo (novel “The Godfather”)
Francis Ford Coppola (screenplay) and Mario Puzo (screenplay)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Dir: Sergio Leone)
Luciano Vincenzoni (story) & Sergio Leone (story)
Agenore Incrocci (screenplay) & Furio Scarpelli (screenplay) & Luciano Vincenzoni (screenplay) & Sergio Leone (screenplay)
The Dark Knight (Dir: Christopher Nolan)
Jonathan Nolan (screenplay) and Christopher Nolan (screenplay)
Christopher Nolan (story) & David S. Goyer (story)
Bob Kane (characters)
Pulp Fiction (Dir. Quentin Tarantino)
Quentin Tarantino (stories) & Roger Avary (stories)
Quentin Tarantino (written by)
Schindler’s List (Dir: Steven Spielberg)
Thomas Keneally (book)
Steven Zaillian (screenplay)
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (Dir: Milos Forman)
Lawrence Hauben (screenplay) and Bo Goldman (screenplay)
Ken Kesey (novel)
Dale Wasserman (play)
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (Dir: Irvin Kershner)
George Lucas (story)
Leigh Brackett (screenplay) and Lawrence Kasdan (screenplay)
12 Angry Men (Dir: Sidney Lumet)
Reginald Rose (story)
Reginald Rose (screenplay)
Only 3 of the directors were involved with both the screenplay and story, however, 2 of them also had other writers involved too. I would say Pulp Fiction is the only film on that list where you can credit the director with the full writing because Roger Avery only wrote the one story (for which QT wrote all the dialogue for).
You will find that those other directors alone will commonly get praised for those films, even if the main appeal is the story, and nobody mentions the writers. Of course the directors play a huge part, but it’s often the case that when somebody likes the dialogue or story in a film, they attribute it to the director. To not be biased, I will take Scorsese as an example. He has hardly been involved in the writing process, yet he will often get full credit for his films. It’s a case of knowing what each position (eg. writer, director, cinematographer) entails, what they’re responsible for.
I respect writer-directors more as the film is normally close to 100% theirs, such as QT and the Coen Brothers. They create all the stories, dialogue, characters etc. They’re the true filmmakers.