Roger Corman

[Samuel_Scott]

Just finished up the Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel documentary and as a long time fan of Corman, this is essential viewing.
http://www.dvdcompare.net/review.php?rid=2952

Anyway, anybody care to attempt to name someone who has been more influential in cinema as a whole with reasoning?

[Jim_Mcdonaugh]

Anyway, anybody care to attempt to name someone who has been more influential in cinema as a whole with reasoning?

Hitchcock?

[Samuel_Scott]

Anyway, anybody care to attempt to name someone who has been more influential in cinema as a whole with reasoning?

Hitchcock?

Nah. Hitchcock is the master of suspense, and his films are certainly better in most aspects than anything of Corman's but look how Corman changed the face of cinema in the 60s and 70s by sticking it to the Hollywood studios. Also, look at the talent that have been given some of their first chances thanks to Corman... Ron Howard, Jack Nicholson, Pam Grier, Joe Dante, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Sylvester Stallone, Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, Jonathan Demme, John Sayles, Penelope Spheeris... and this is just off the top of my head. Now where would modern American cinema be without the Scorsese's and Coppola's of the world?

btw, Nicholson knows he owes his career to Corman. He even cried after talking about how good his life is because of Corman.

[Stephen_Campbell]

Anyway, anybody care to attempt to name someone who has been more influential in cinema as a whole with reasoning?

D.W. Griffith. Bit of an obvious one, but he essentially created modern filmic grammar, especially in relation to editing. Eisenstein would be another one whose influence is still felt today.

As regards more contemporary directors, I would argue Michael Mann. Not only did he quite literally change the face of TV in the 80s, the stylistic changes he introduced into Miami Vice were soon incorporated into filmmaking and he's never gotten the credit he deserved for it. There's an episode of Vice called "Rites of Passage" from the first season, when Mann still had complete aesthetic control, which I use in a course I teach on film studies. There's a a scene of Tubbs having sex with Pam Greer untercut with Greer's sister being murdered, and the whole thing is scored to "I Want to Know What Love Is". That kind of storytelling had never been seen before in either television or film. And it's a norm now. Think of all the "musical montages" seen in virtually every film now adays, esepcially in the work of someone like Scorsese. Then, in the early 00s, Mann started shooting films on DV when no one else was doing it. He even lost his original DoP on Collateral because he thought Mann was nuts wanting to shoot a major studio film on video. Fast forward ten years, and look at how many filmmakers are using DV now. They even made a documentary about the prevalence of DV use which featured Scorsese, Lynch, Tarantino, Cameron, Lucas and, ironically, NOT Michael Mann! I don't know if he was mentioned, I didn't bother going to see it when I found out he wasn't in it. Mann is also responsible for giving their first break to Julia Roberts, Liam Neeson, Chris Cooper, William Petersen, Dennis Farina, Wes Studi, Stephen Lang, as well as making bona fide stars out of Jamie Foxx and Daniel Day Lewis and getting career performances from Will Smith, Russell Crowe and Johnny Depp.

He also has an IQ of over 160!

[Jim_Mcdonaugh]

He also has an IQ of over 160!

IQ means very little in real life, actually. You can have twice that much and still be a bum.

[Samuel_Scott]

Interesting choice Stephen!

[Tim_Rogerson]

Mann is also responsible for giving their first break to Julia Roberts, Liam Neeson, Chris Cooper, William Petersen, Dennis Farina, Wes Studi, Stephen Lang,

Come on - you are exagerrating here. Apart from Roberts and Neeson these guys are hardly huge Hollywood stars and the type of person who might have just as easily made their debut performance in a Jeremiah Chetnik film !! Petersen's breakthrough role was surely To Live and Die in LA for Friedkin not his cameo in Thief. I can't even think what Liam Neeson even did for Mann other than appear in a Miami Vice episode after he had already starred in several Brit films and also appeared in a supporting role in The Mission. Certainly not his 'first break'.