Somewhere In The Middle
Of course, there are a huge number of debuts that neither plumb the depths we’ve just been to, nor scale the heights of the first list, but fall somewhere on the spectrum in the middle. Profile-wise, one of the biggest disappointments, that apparently put him in “director’s jail” for more a decade, was Christopher McQuarrie’s “The Way of the Gun.” It’s hard to believe that any film that starts so promisingly, with Ryan Phillippe full-on punching Sarah Silverman in the mouth, can go so far downhill, but despite its gonzo and engaging opening half hour, the film soon sinks under its own weight, hampered by thin characterization, ludicrous overplotting and a director way, way too much in love with the prose on the page to bother trying to make it sound like dialogue from a human mouth. He kind of redeemed himself with “Jack Reacher,” though. Better, and actually just missing out on the top list was “The Lookout” from Scott Frank (“Out of Sight,” “Minority Report”) a very nicely handled low-key Joseph Gordon-Levitt-starring drama that makes us look forward to his next time at the helm with “A Walk Among the Tombstones.”
All-time great screenwriter Robert Towne made his first foray into direction with “Personal Best” which is still a pretty decent drama set among the women competing for a place on the US athletics Olympics team, even if it’s now become something of a pop-culture byword among men who felt early stirrings at its scenes of hardbodied lesbianism. And superstar “Blade,” “Batman Begins” and “Man of Steel” writer David S.Goyer’s “Zig Zag” has at least one champion among us, but we couldn’t track down a copy in time to watch, while David Koepp’s (“Mission: Impossible,” “Panic Room”) “The Trigger Effect” is an underrated little B-movie thriller documenting relationship and societal breakdown during a power blackout.
“LA Confidential” and “Mystic River” writer Brian Helgeland’s first time in the chair was the pretty tough and nasty Mel Gibson thriller “Payback” (which shares source material with “Point Blank” to give you an idea of the tone) and he recently hit a homerun with “42.”. Glenn Ficarra & John Requa graduated from writing partners on “Bad Santa” and “The Bad News Bears” remake to directing partners on the famously dithered-over-then-not-really-released “I Love You Phillip Morris,” while George Nolfi’s (“Ocean’s Twelve,” “The Bourne Ultimatum”) “The Adjustment Bureau” had terrific elements (we could have watched Matt Damon and Emily Blunt fall in love all day) but also had these dumb guys in hats running around and got really silly in its latter stages. Speaking of Emily Blunt, “The Jane Austen Book Club” was the directorial debut of Robin Swicord, the woman behind scripts for “Matilda,” “Memoirs of a Geisha” and “Practical Magic” and it’s unlikely to change anyone’s life, but it’s a pretty decent romantic comedy nonetheless. And Alan Ball, who is probably better known as TV showrunner on “Six Feet Under” and “True Blood” but who of course is behind the screenplay for “American Beauty,” did big-screen directorial duty on “Towelhead” which we’re ashamed to say we haven’t caught up with yet, but we’ve heard some good things about.
At the lower end of the register, Nora Ephron’s first time directing “This Is My Life” is a fine, but forgettable story of a woman forced to choose between family and her stand-up career and nowhere near as good as stuff she’d do later, while Guillermo Arriaga (“Babel,” “Amores Perros” scripts) went back to the old “interconnecting stories” well for his debut “The Burning Plain” but with diminishing returns. “Braveheart” writer Randall Wallace’s take on “The Man With The Iron Mask” was handsomely mounted, competently acted and totally anonymous, directorially speaking. Regular Tim Burton collaborator John August took his first swing with “The Nines,” starring Ryan Reynolds, which tries just a bit too hard to be clever and tricksy without ever quite working out its own trick, but honestly, we’d take it over “Dark Shadows” or “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” any day. Susannah Grant (“Ever After” “Erin Brockovich” “In Her Shoes” sceenplays) directed “Catch and Release” as her debut, about a woman (Jennifer Garner) falling for her deceased fiancee’s best friend but it doesn’t hang together particularly well, despite chemistry between leads Garner and Timothy Olyphant. Finally, a sugary sweet duo for dessert: Zach Helm (“Stranger than Fiction”) tried a bit too hard to instil Awe and Wonder into his “Mr Magorium’s Magic Emporium,” overshot the mark and ended up in schmaltz. As did Mark Steven Johnson, writer of “Grumpy Old Men” who made his debut with “Simon Burch, ” an adaptation of John Irving’s beloved novel “A Prayer for Owen Meany” in which none of the book’s acerbic wit or darker tones remain, leaving a film that cloys and annoys as it tries so very hard to warm your heart. Still, Johnson went on to direct “Ghost Rider” so no harm, no foul.
As a final note we should also mention that we excluded a host of classic directors who may have initially started as screenwriters, but whose subsequent output as director, or writer/director, may have overshadowed their early days, like Federico Fellini (directorial debut — “Variety Lights”), Barry Levinson (“Diner”), Billy Wilder (“Mauvaise Graine”) Lawrence Kasdan (“Body Heat”)and Joseph Mankiewicz (“Backfire”). But of course, despite all this, we’ve missed out a load — tell us who below.
Steven Gaghan won an Academy Award for TRAFFIC (2000) and followed that up with ABANDON starring Katie Holmes, which I don't know if anyone saw, much less liked. Seems to have righted ship with follow-up SYRIANA.
frank miller's THE SPIRIT was definetely the kind of movie a watched and loved, but knew no one else would get. i thought jackson was great. i found the story totally understandable, and cool: jackson wants the blood of hercules to be immortal, eva mendes wants the golden fleece. you know, im gay, but i thought the t and a was quality.
im afraid its the kind of film that people dont like because they overthought it. sin city gave people the wrong expectations for where this film would go.
Come on, you really did miss two of the best and alive writer-turned directors out there!
How could you miss Quentin Tarantino, who was quite successful in both but arguably is a better screenwriter than director.
And even better, the famous novelist Lee Chang-dong who decided to go into directing (and later on into politics) with quite a breakthrough success also, similar to his books. He never did screenwriting for others.
The Fabulous Baker Boys, Steve Kloves's directorial debut should be up there with the good ones.
If one wants to do a proper story on this subject, please go to the writer-directors you are writing about, and maybe manage to ask them the actual story about what happened, in script, in production, in post, to the pictures you are discussing. Then you would have something for people to read and discuss, probably blisteringly improved and informed by the subjects of the article. I should certainly like to see Christopher McQuarrie and William Monahan and Steve Zallian, among others, respond to the assertions in this piece about writer-directors. I suspect that most of them would have a word to say. This article does not go out for comment to the people it is talking about. Whether this is out of innocence, ignorance, or intentional deficit of elbow grease is for the writer to consider, because surely there was no trained editor involved.
While many of these examples reveal a lot of folks who come from a clear "non-directing" or even "non-filmmaking" (Frank Miller) background, there tends to be a running misconception in this "biz" about the screenwriter/director thing. It has to do with "intent" and actual background.
Many of the folks on this list actually INTENDED to direct, made shorts, went to film programs and studied the craft, but "broke in" as screenwriters. Frank Darabont, on this list, is a good example of that; he made several shorts in his early 20s before going into screenwriting, then BACK to being a writer-director, NOT writer "turned" director.
Funny, how the business sees a lot of this like a team sport (e.g. "you're a center fielder; you can't play 1st base.") Not like that. Of course, many intend to become writers and then become directors, but not strictly the case. (See: Paul Haggis.)
What about Preston Sturges? I'm only saying this because didn't he start the trend of screenwriters-turned-directors?
Paul Schrader???
Worst "successful screenwriter turned director" movie: Kevin Williamson's Teaching Mrs. Tingle. This was before everyone realized Williamson was more or less a hack (or at least a one trick pony) and expectations were actually pretty high. It's awful. It plays like a bad ABC Family movie of the week.
No mention of Diablo Cody or am I missing it? Also Harmony Korine, he's one of the craziest examples of screenwriter turned director, getting his first writing job by basically meeting a pervert in the park when he was 19. Also most of all I'm just happy that you can still make the jump from screenwriter to director in this day and age, as I believe all the best directors are writers too or have written
Excellent list, some great stuff in there.
No mention of the Academy Award-nominated Steven Knight's (Dirty Pretty Things, Amazing Grace, Eastern Promises) directorial debut that's one later this month?!
Alex Kurtzman's People Like Us?
Throw me on the Way of the Gun-bandwagon. That movie's pretty damn good, and way more distinctive than Jack Reacher, which I still kinda liked.
Avengers sucked.
Don't overlook James L. Brook's "Terms of Endearment" which won Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor and Actress. Not a shabby directorial debut.
I was disappointed with Synecdoche.
I thought that "The Way of the Gun" was great, the last third makes it better again.
Way of the Gun is pretty goddamn awesome but even I have to admit that the plot gets kinda convoluted as it moves along. It's one of those movies that you have to give your absolute undivided attention to while watching and even then it's really easy to miss an important detail or nuance.