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<div align='center'><a href='http://www.kontraband.com/blog/15548/The-Best-Worst-Directors-Part-1/'>The Best Worst Directors - Part 1</a><br><div align='center'></div><br><a href='http://www.kontraband.com/blog'>See more like this on kontraband.com</a></div>

William Friedkin

The Good:
The Exorcist, The French Connection, To Live and Die in L.A.

The Bad:
So imagine you live in New York in 1970 and you've just left for work. You're just about to turn onto Stillwell Ave from 86th St. when a Pontiac LeMans runs a red light and plows into your car (see clip at 8 seconds in). Congratulations! You're in a William Friedkin movie. Rather than mess around with irrelevant stuff like shooting permits and carefully prepared stunts Friedkin wrapped himself in a mattress, jammed himself and his camera into the Pontiac with stunt driver Bill Hickman and told him to "floor it"- into everyday city traffic.

Freidkin says he is so dedicated to getting the shot just right he's willing to do anything, but he seldom has to resort to "anything" as he knows that surprise violence works so well. While filming The Exorcist he punched Father Dyer in the face to get a shocked look and crept up behind cast members and fired shotguns to help them look suitably frightened.



Sam Peckinpah a.k.a. "Bloody Sam, Mad Sam"

The Good:
The Wild Bunch, Cross of Iron, Straw Dogs, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

The Bad:
Sam Peckinpah is the directing equivalent of Chuck Norris - but more dangerous. While filming Major Dundee he pissed off Charlton Heston soooo bad during an on set scuffle Heston threatened to/tried to (depends on who you ask) run him through with a cavalry sabre. Sam Peckinpah can p1ss Charlton Heston off so much that he won't even take the time to reach for a gun.

On set Sam was frequently drunk, stoned and heavily armed. When a producer dared question some of his decisions his first rebuke was a hurled bowie knife and his second was a good old fashioned ass whoopin', "I stripped him as naked as one of his badly told lies" says Mad Sam. Sam was then sacked. By phone.

Probably a manic depressive, certainly his habit of wandering round his house shooting at himself in the mirror doesn't speak of a healthy mental state, he eventually died aged 59 leaving behind a legacy of some of the most violent cinema ever made. (The final shoot-out in the Wild Bunch is said to have used as many blanks as actual rounds were fired in the entire Mexican revolution.)Frequent collaborator James Coburn said, "He pushed me over the abyss and then jumped in after me. He took me on some great adventures."



James Cameron a.k.a. "Iron Jim"

The Good:
The Terminator, T2, Aliens, The Abyss: Directors Cut, True Lies, the bits of the ship sinking in Titanic

The Bad:
"You can't scare me, I work for Jim Cameron." - T-shirt worn by cast and crew members since The Terminator. He's dictatorial, megalomaniacal and a complete asshole of a director. He says, "It should be noted that I am never negative with the actors, absolutely and religiously. In many ways they have the most difficult job on the set, and I make it my mission to be supportive and collaborative." but that didn't stop Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio walking off the Abyss set screaming "WE ARE NOT ANIMALS!!" and Ed Harris crying on the drive home on most days.

His perfectionist zeal for action sequences overrides any concern for the safety of his cameramen, they half jokingly wore "James Cameron's Stuntman" t-shirts. He communicates with them through a massive PA system set to "God Volume" - THAT IS EXACTLY HOW I WANT IT. IF ANYONE MOVES BEFORE THE TAKE YOU ARE FIRED.

The Really God Awful:

His attempts at romantic dialogue.



Dennis Hopper

The Good:
Easy Rider, Colours was OK, I guess.

The Bad:
During the filming of Easy Rider Hopper "was drinking a half-gallon of rum with a fifth of rum on the side, in case I ran out, 28 beers a day, and three grams of cocaine just to keep me moving around. And I thought I was doing fine because I wasn't crawling around drunk on the floor." He was also taking enough LSD to turn a Republican convention into Woodstock.

During the shooting of Easy Rider, Hopper was deep into drug induced psychosis. It manifested in extreme paranoia, he became convinced that the crew were trying to take his movie away from him, that someone was stealing his shoes and that the Feds had infiltrated the set. He started screaming at the crew after a week, had punched a cameraman by the second week and by the forth he was staying awake for 48 hours plus, one hand holding tightly onto the canned film and the other holding onto a loaded firearm in order to guard it from "invaders".



Stanley Kubrick

The Good:
Full Metal Jacket, Dr Strangelove, The Shining, Lolita, Barry Lyndon, A Clockwork Orange, 2001, Paths of Glory, Eyes Wide Shut

The Bad:

"I do not always know what I want, but I do know what I don't want."

Stanley was searching for a doorway to serve as a location for a scene in Eyes Wide Shut. It was a very short scene, less than a minute of screen time in the final film. He dispatched a lackey to go and photograph a few doorways so he could select one. Twelve months, 30,000 photographed doorways and one very depressed photographer later he found one that was juuust right. Perfectionist doesn't begin to cover it. When making Dr. Strangelove he asked his set designer to cover the table in the war room with green baize to give the impression that the generals were "playing poker with the world". When a set dresser was heard questioning why this was being done, a reasonable question given that the film was being shot in black and white, he was fired on the spot.

His preparation for every film was meticulous, lasting years, often finding himself beaten to the punch by other directors. Platoon was conceived, written, produced, released and then a series of films riding on the interest it had generated in Hollywood (e.g. Hamburger Hill) were conceived, written, produced and released in the time Kubrick had been doing the pre-production for Full Metal Jacket.

While James Cameron is known for treating actors like cattle, Kubrick is known for treating his actors like lab rats. During The Shining he started a campaign of weeks of psychological torture aimed squarely at Shelley Duvall. He refused to speak with her, circulated rumours among the cast and crew that she was about to be fired and he'd have her repeat scenes for hours on end until she was literally on the verge of a breakdown, then inform her that he hadn't even put film in the camera. It's debatable how much of her performance as a terrified fragile woman was actually "acting".

Most directors like to think of themselves as auteurs but really they're not, they're journeymen who translate the vision of the writer and claim all the glory. Kubrick on the other hand took others work and reworked them, to unrecognisable lengths sometimes, and left them with his personality stamped all over them: intellectual, emotionally cold, unsettlingly focused and truly fantastic.

Added: 1123 days ago by By Jingo | Posted in: Celebs | 11 Comments

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