HACK

Memes aside, let's talk about this guy for a moment.

Most of Sup Forums seems reluctant to criticize him, because Blade Runner is still fresh in our minds and we all liked it. But understand that calling him a "hack director" does not mean that he makes bad movies. Blade Runner is good, Sicario is good, Prisoners is good, Arrival and Enemy are decent. But Villeneuve himself is the weak link in each production. He, himself, brings very little to the table.

He embodies calculated, professional competence, with no real creative spark or genuine talent. He picks good stories, he surrounds himself with talented cast & crew, he faithfully executes the filming of each screenplay, but he does nothing to elevate any of it. There's no poetry or beauty in his framing, camera movement, mise en scene, or editing. Just cold, competent clarity.

Imagine a film directed by a computer program, a low-grade AI that translates a script into a shot-list. And you've got Villeneuve. And that, in a very literal sense, is what "hack" means. "Hack" does not mean "bad," it means he stands there and lets the cast & crew do their work without much interference. I imagine his main function on-set is to make sure everything gets done on schedule and on budget.

He is not a BAD filmmaker, he is true neutral, he is high-grade mediocrity. He doesn't fuck anything up, but he doesn't know how to bring what's on the page to a higher level. I wouldn't pick on him if people weren't so quick to hail him as a "great director." Because this overblown reception, more so than the rise of capeshit and franchise blockbusters, signals a bleak future for cinema. It means we've completely forgotten what a director is actually supposed to do. The only difference between Villeneuve and a nameless Marvel Studios hack is his choice of source material.

>Memes aside, let's talk about this OP for a moment.

>Most of Sup Forums seems reluctant to criticize him, because his post is still fresh in our minds and we all liked it. But understand that calling him a "hack poster" does not mean that he makes bad threads. He previously has I assume made good posts on Sup Forums, Sup Forums and /hm/. But OP himself is the weak link in each thread. He, himself, brings very little to the table.

>He embodies calculated, NEET competence, with no real creative spark or genuine talent. He picks good pasta, he surrounds himself with talented shills & shitposters, he faithfully executes the posting of each pasta, but he does nothing to elevate any of it. There's no poetry or beauty in his greentext, captcha solvest, memes, or images. Just cold, competent shitposting.

>Imagine a thread directed by a computer program, a low-grade AI that translates a script into a shitpost. And you've got OP. And that, in a very literal sense, is what "hack" means. "Hack" does not mean "bad," it means he stands there and lets the shills & shitposters do their work without much interference. I imagine his main function on this board is to make sure everything gets done on the schedule he wrote for himself.

>He is not a BAD poster, he is true neutral, he is high-grade mediocrity. He doesn't fuck anything up, but he doesn't know how to bring what's on the board to a higher level. I wouldn't pick on him if people weren't so quick to hail him as a "great poster." Because this overblown reception, more so than the rise of newfags and redditors, signals a bleak future for Sup Forums. It means we've completely forgotten what a thread is actually supposed to do. The only difference between OP and a nameless r/Sup Forums reddit meme spewing hack is his choice of source material.

KILL YOURSELF

Thanks for the bump my friend

I mean, sure he is not Kubrick or Kurosawa but his films are good so does it really matter?

He is

Everything that's good about Blade Runner, Sicario, or Prisoners comes from the script. He has pretty much nothing to do with writing his films. As I said, he doesn't fuck it up, so everything that's good on the page comes through in Villeneuve's films. But I can't help but imagine what a real director could've done with the same material.

If you say "Blade Runner 2049 is a good film" I agree, but if you say "BASED VILLENEUVE DOES IT AGAIN" I have to call bullshit

You know, I kind of agree, but also think that your definition of 'real director' would never do a movie like Blade Runner. The size of it first and foremost

Blade Runner 2049 is not good. Prisoners and Enemy aren't good either. You have terrible taste and also quite obviously do not know much about filmmaking.

>He embodies calculated, professional competence, with no real creative spark or genuine talent. He picks good stories, he surrounds himself with talented cast & crew, he faithfully executes the filming of each screenplay, but he does nothing to elevate any of it. There's no poetry or beauty in his framing, camera movement, mise en scene, or editing. Just cold, competent clarity.

>And that, in a very literal sense, is what "hack" means. "Hack" does not mean "bad," it means he stands there and lets the cast & crew do their work without much interference. I imagine his main function on-set is to make sure everything gets done on schedule and on budget.

No, it literally means "professional".
He may not be an artist, but he is flawless craftsman and he doesn't make arthouse movies, he just makes mainstream movies extremely well.

Indeed. A real director doesn't take the helm of corporate sponsored IP revivals. A real director makes NEW films, not remakes and reboots. A hack takes assignments like "make a new SF film based on blade runner with Harrison ford in it"/ that is the very definition of a hack, a jobbing director.

He is another hack in the realist opulence vessel that infected hollywood after Batman Begins, a huge effort of technicians unable to deal horizontally with the material, more concerned with achieving ethereal perfection in their own craft

whatever faggot

but isn't that a good thing tho? He is a skilled filmmaker which makes him a good director in my opinion. Not fucking up is a valuable skill and as we can see that's what is missing nowadays if he's getting all the praise.

I'm not a film expert or something but his way of doing plot twists is what really makes him stand out imo. Arrival and BR2049 had "subtle" plot twists or rather. hmm, subdued? Can't find the right word but I really like that in his films. I also think he knows his audience really well.

I don't think I should be the one discussing it because I have only seen Arrival and BR204 but, well, here are my thoughts.

t. doesn't even understand how movies are made

you're a fucking faggot OP, as always

>plot twists is what really makes him stand out imo
you need to go back you tourist fuck

You're stupid.
For example, scorcese made shitty copy of Infernal Affairs and the script was there, yet the original film is miles better than his.
It's like you're forgetting that in cinema the producer/director/etc are all important parts.
You're mad because a Canadian is fucking kicking ass at his job?

Get a fucking life.

They're not bad either, from a writing/storytelling perspective. Prisoners and Sicario are just fine, Blade Runner was genuinely interesting to me aside from the franchise-baiting bullshit they did with Harrison Ford and Sean Young's characters.

But purely from a filmmaking perspective, yeah, they are bland, flat and lifeless. Bare minimum. "Does the audience see (key prop)? Can they hear the dialogue and see the actor's face? Good enough, let's call it a day"

>yet the original film is miles better than his
Right off the bat, this proves you're not worth listening to. Neither film is a masterpiece, The Departed is not one of Scorsese's best, but it's miles ahead of Infernal Affairs. In a film like that, the script is just one part of the whole picture - it's more about the sense of place and setting, the intensity of the performances, the life & energy of the camerawork and editing. That's what it looks like when a director elevates a script.

I don't give a fuck that he's canadian. Gosling is canadian and I like him, Xavier Dolan is canadian and he's ten times the filmmaker that Villeneuve could ever be. You're just mad that I'm not patting you on the back and calling you a genius for enjoying a slightly-above-average blockbuster.

Enlighten me, then. Most of the valid praise I've heard for Villeneuve's work are really just compliments of Roger Deakins's work.

Movies don't happen without directors dipshit, this is how it shoes that you know nothing about what the dirtector's role is in movie making.

Deakin shoots what his directors tell him to shoot. His job is to make it look good. But the composition, angles, length of shots, all of that is up to the director.

The lighting, technical details, and some frame composition is what the DP does.

But I wouldn't expect some dipshit Sup Forums autist to know any of this

>x director is a hack
>proceeds to name his most well known works
>well known by normie plebs
>BR, sicario, prisoners, arrival, enemy
>absolutely no mention of polytechnique or incendies
>absolutely no mention of his shorts
do you want to know how I know this board has gone to shit? when reddit faggots like you try so desperately to """""fit in""""". everytime a movie comes out and it's well received this board goes to complete shit, thread after thread of edgy contrarians trying to one up each other. countless pointless bait threads and bait "discussions" about the most recent films.
I have one advice for you
k y s

Remember when you guys were doing the exact same thing with Nolan 5 years ago? Why can't you stand Directors who bring two type of audiences to their movies? Why do you hate directors whos movies get praised by critics and normies?

not the same guy but you are a complete retard
you have absolutely no understanding of what a director does and you have no understanding what makes a good director.
>inb4 b-b-b-but tell me!!
no. go fuck yourself. you exposed yourself to being a child the second you made the thread.

Lol.

That's exactly my point. Every frame looks crisp, sharp and well-lit, but Villeneuve does absolutely nothing with it. The framing and camera movement are never expressive, purely functional. There's no real choreography within the frame, no interesting use of depth or space, it's just clear shots of objects and faces taken directly from the script. Every shot has one thing to look at, set against a nice-looking backdrop.

The cinematographer and production designer are running the show, here. Villeneuve essentially performs the same function as an episode director for a TV series. He's running the set logistically, supervising the script/storyboard and making sure everyone's on the same page, but his actual creative contribution is minimal.

huh? what's wrong with that?

>Sup Forums
>the one place where to prove a director is an hack is by stating that directors have no part in making the movie
Hummmmm

So you admit this talentless hack is just the new nolan

He's shit, if you couldn't figure that out after sicari and arrival then you're just a retard who thinks nolan is great.

No, you're talking about JJ Abrams.
If there's a definition for a run of the mill, company man director, it's him.

I agree, my opinion on him has changed. I used to think he was the pinnacle of nu-filmmaker dishonesty. But he's just an anonymous TV director with a retarded fanbase and doesn't deserve hatred. I thought I perceived a self-important ego but it's not in the actual films. He just has that permanently punchable narcissistic face but I now realize it's some physical disability beyond his control rather than him being convinced he's an actually talented auteur, so I feel sorry for him rather than annoyed. He's really no better or worse than a HBO second-unit director. He is Antoine Fuqua (Sicario is just Training Day), he is Phillip Noyce (Prisoners = Bone Collector). Rather than an actually dishonest try-hard trying & failing to be Fincher, Mann or prime Scott. He seems perfectly content of wallowing in his mercenary mediocrity.

Are you fucking kidding me?
If there is a thing he does right is what is and what is not shown in every single scene.
Kys, just end it.
You haven't provided a single valid point to your quest and you made your self look like a complete retard in the process.
We'll done.

>Everything that's good about Blade Runner, Sicario, or Prisoners comes from the script
Have you actually read any of the scripts of these films? Except for BR, they are utterly generic, Villeneuve miraculously made great films out of them. Sicario could've been just another B tier mexican drug trade film everyone forgets about, but because of Villeneuve's execution it's one of the most prominant slow burning thrillers of recent times.
Or take the threeway sex scene in BR2049. That could've easily been a completely ridiculous cheesy scene, but because of his execution it's genuinely emotionally involving and one of the better scenes in the entire film.

You lost your train of thought somewhere in all these walls of texts.

Why do you only target the popular directors with amazing filmographies? And only talk about them when they get popular? Nobody was shitting on Villeneuve 5 years ago but since hes hot shit right now you feel the need to be a contrarian bitch.

This nigga knows. I read the original Sicario screenplay and it wasn't that great. Denis elevated it to another level, especially when he removed Sheridan's retarded baptism opening and other tidbits. He's a great director

They are one in the same. JJ is knock-off Spielberg optimism, Villeneuve is knock-off Fincher nihilism.

I haven't seen Sicario or Prisoners but no BR2049 is one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen, it's more than just a good script

Don't directors take the script, and then effectively do what they want with it? They have the final say with everything.
If you like the script then surely how the director handled it is worthy of praise?
The scene everyone seems to love is when K says the large advertisement of Joi - the script could be the same in all iterations, but surely it's how the director chose to handle that scene that made it even more special?

Because nobody dupes themselves into believing Joss Whedon or Michael Bay are "great directors." Everyone knows what they're watching. Villeneuve is a top-grade hack, but he's still cut from the same cloth. He has better taste, but still no definable talent, no real creative spark.

I would have no problem with Villeneuve or Nolan if people recognized them for what they are. And for what it's worth, Nolan is in a higher class than Villeneuve. He has no real visual style or sensibility, but he's a decent writer and his work seems more genuine.

Watch more films

Blade Runner is his only good movie.

>he doesn't know the director has the most creative control out of everyone involved save for the producers
>he doesn't know the director is the one deciding everything from pre-prod, sets, shots/framing, shot composition, the way the actors deliver their performance, how the film is edited, what score to use, etc
>he doesn't know a good director can even save a mediocre script but a bad director can sink the absolute best script there is
>he doesn't know what it takes to be a director
>he doesn't know how the film industry works
my dude, just give it up.

>actually comparing villeneuve with joss whedon or michael bay
nigger you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.
if you can't see villeneuve's strenghts (pro tip: it's not visual style) you clearly have no business discussing films. go to film school or read some books about it. you'll soon realize just how good denis is (and consequently, how shit whedon is)

I fucking knew some smug cunt would make a reply like this.

You just can't express any kind of genuine appreciation for something without some bitter NEET attacking you.

I notice you don't have any alternative suggestions

This is such a bullshit fucking ignorant post.
If you took the same exact script of Sicario and Prisoners and gave it to 99% of other directors you would get the most forgettable shit ever. What's so fucking special about the script of Sicario user? It's as generic as it get's, but Denis made it into something special

Have you ever set foot on a film set? It's different every time. If the director wants real creative control, he has to constantly battle his producers and DP to get it. Nobody in the cast & crew is a mindless tool, they have ideas & vision of their own, and if the director isn't constantly pushing them they'll act on their own initiative.

What you're seeing in "Blade Runner" is an absolutely top-notch crew running on autopilot. The production design team builds a set. Deakins and his team compose & light a still frame to see as much of that set as possible and make it pretty. The actor stands in the foreground and delivers his/her lines. Every single scene.

I'm just interested in his eyes.

Is he a mutt? He has no eyelids like some gook.

Note how you only listed the ones with deakins hands in it
This is because those are deakins films not this hack masters

>the crew has ideas and a vision of their own
too bad nobody gives a shit about a literal nobody's idea you stupid fuck, that's what the director is there for. no one will challenge him because he is literally paid to direct and they're paid to help him put his vision on the screen.
>in blade runner there's a top-notch crew on autopilot
jesus christ, the absolute state of Sup Forums nowadays

Not him but my company made a film, got selected and went to Lucarno this year (well, the director was, at least).
Maybe you never heard about our movie, hell maybe you don't even know what Lucarno is, but you should just shut up.

Good post. V is purely mediocre. I cannot fathom how someone can believe he makes great movies except for one scenario: If someone has only seen maybe under 100 movies, mostly from the past 10 years, then maybe you'd think Villenueve is remarkable. But otherwise, you'd just have to have awful taste to believe so.

He has the "calling cards" of someone whose films neophytes overpraise: lingering shots, technically competent visuals, sparse dialogue in parts, and an inkling of thematic depth (that's usually overly explained).

He is Nolan 2.0, but with less silly dialogue and more competent action sequences. End of story.

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, I don't even know why you'd chime in with this bullshit. You have a meme idea of what a director does, you assume it happens automatically, but that idea comes from a pretty rare occurrence when a director cares enough about his "vision" to make himself a real pain in the ass for his crew & producers.

It's not automatic, the crew of a film like this are not "literal nobodies," and if the creative choice they're pushing for is faster and cheaper than the director's, then everyone except the director will have their back. If the director genuinely gives a fuck, then he spends the entire shoot fighting.

Imagine being this ignorant.
Deakins started working with Villeneuve from scratch, literally made storyboards with Villeneuve in a hotel room throwing ideas around for weeks. Yes the director has the final say, but that doesn't mean that ideas from others are not used.
Even Gosling wrote an entire scene and Villeneuve was so impressed by it that they ditched what was written in the script and went with what he had in mind. Pic related.

>I have no idea how a movie is made and I don't know what I'm talking about - the post
just shut up faggot. if you're not baiting you're clinically retarded.
members from the crew (to be read: the DP or the actors) can offer SUGGESTIONS to the director.
example: if the director asks for it, the DP can offer his suggestions on how to film a scene, basically, from what angles to approach it, how to light it. strictly technical and IF the director asks for it. your job on set isn't to fuck about and come up with your own shit to halt production and argue with the director.
same as with actors. they discuss their scenes with the DIRECTOR, and offer suggestions on either A) how they want to approach the scene from a theatrical standpoint, how to deliver their lines and how to perform B) how to improve a certain scene, in the case with gosling, by being capable of delivering on something difficult to do that if not done right would be time consuming AND WOULD COST MONEY.
both you and the retard op in this thread need to grow up and realize a film production is not like in your cartoons. it's a very difficult process and it costs a lot of money.
no one is there to fuck around, a hierarchy is in place from the get go. a fucking gaffer is not gonna argue with the director because LMAO I HAVE A BETTER IDEA BRO because HE WOULD GET FUCKING FIRED ON THE SPOT.
this isn't some indie bullshit skeleton crew. this is a multimillion dollar production you fuckign asswhipes.

You type like a retard and your arguments are not based in reality. You have never worked on a film set.

neither have you on anything worth a shit and if the company was full of faggots like you I can't imagine it even got finished

>I have been proven wrong so I'm gonna call him a retard xD xD he couldn't possibly have ever worked on a film I'm the best!

>Most of Sup Forums seems reluctant to criticize him
20 threads a day shitting on him because of blade runner.

>There's no poetry or beauty in his framing, camera movement, mise en scene, or editing. Just cold, competent clarity.
stale pasta isn't good pasta, the true irony is that you yourself lack any originality. kill yourself and stop shitting up this board with useless garbage.

> a bleak future for cinema
it has always been and will always be bleak, art is subjective and it's integrity usually hinges on the contemporary, some of the most celebrated artists the world has ever known were soulless commercial artists, time elevates them and nothing else. again i urge you to kill yourself.

>hi I am 14 years old

To make something really remarkable, a director has to constantly fight against the force of "good enough." Producers & crew will always opt for "good enough," because that means finishing the day on time, wrapping the production on-budget and on-schedule. The argument between "great" and "good enough" begins in pre-production and extends throughout the entire shoot.

"Good enough" means a wide master shot, individual medium shots of each actor, and close-ups of important props or actions, for each scene. A professional crew can put that scene together on autopilot. They get the best possible frame of the set that the production design team built, the actors inhabit the set, and they block out the shots. Paint by numbers. "Good enough" allows a set to run smoothly and pleasantly, because everyone knows what's going on, the script is getting filmed. That's Villeneuve's whole body of work. I'm not saying it's bad, it isn't. It's good enough.

Great directors push for more. They might want to re-write the scene a bit on the day of filming, because the written dialogue just isn't coming out of the actors right on that day. They might want an unconventional camera move or frame, that takes hours to set up, that the crew & producers can't see any necessity for, because they could get the scene done faster with conventional master/shot/reverse-shot setups. Hell, they might need to take 4 days to re-build the set to accomplish that shot. They have to go against the flow, they have to push the production into a place where some people might be unhappy or not understand what's going on.

David Lean, Sergio Leone, Werner Herzog, Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, etc - the really great ones - have all made films where their crew almost went into mutiny, their producers wanted to push them out, they overspent and went over-schedule. Nobody knew what the fuck they were doing until they came out of the editing room with something brilliant.

Prisoners is good too.

There's still some smaller movies with personal visions, they're just harder to find. Watch Good Time from the Safdies when it gets released on torrent (also Heaven Knows What and their other movies are fantastic). It's probably as close as you can get to the mainstream without compromising vision. The future of auteur films is possibly on free easy to access platforms like youtube (or some less shitty alternative like vimeo), at least that's how I plan on releasing projects.

To accept Villeneuve as a quality director is to garb yourself in a coat of hot pockets and video games and then writh around on the ground in a supermarket while screaching and slapping yourself on the sides of your head.

He is cheeto dust. Nothing more.

Dolan might be better than Villeneuve but he's still far from good. He's an artsy queer kid who got to where he is through his parents' connections and profiteering from queerness being trendy. Decent sense of drama but his work isn't worth much beyond "muh personal expression", and his inability to move past his mommy issues (among other emotional issues) is a bit puerile (not to say that it isn't expected that former child actors are usually emotionally stunted)

>if you can't see villeneuve's strenghts (pro tip: it's not visual style)
so what are his strengths?

>nolan
>amazing filmography

And this is the whole reason I'm ragging on Villenueve. Not because he's bad, not because he's making bad films, but because we're in serious fucking trouble if fans are willing to pretend that "good enough" is the same as "great." Studios do not want to work with great directors, they never have, because they are a pain in the ass and a financial burden. The only way anything great can be made is if audiences and critics are willing to recognize greatness, and single it out above glossy mediocrity.

I think the screenwriters did some great things with Blade Runner 2049, I think Ryan Gosling did, I think Roger Deakins and Dennis Gassner did. Villeneuve did not. He opted for "good enough." Just call it what it is and I've got nothing to argue about.

Great post, should be pasta'd in every Villeneuve thread.

I'm sure you'll start to, autist

>might be
>youngest winner
>shared a prize with godard

oh look another 17 year old contrarian who thinks 'le masters of cinema' were some how bottling lightning. if you were old enough to live through some of the releases you are so fond of you would realise that
1. it's a business.
2. it's all about money.

you want to tell me the great cinematic vision that went behind casting keanu reeves in dracula ? or maybe discuss the powerful artistic sense that birthed jack.most of herzogs feature films were shit tier. scorsese has a solid filmography won't argue that.

>Villeneuve did not. He opted for "good enough." Just call it what it is and I've got nothing to argue about.
What a load of shit. The guy barely used greenscreen, built miniature sets, he clearly put passion and a ton of effort into the movie. Your autistic headcanon that he just did 'good enough' doesn't mean shit.

No, seriously watch more. No need to be defensive.

honestly you are wasting your breath, these are the same people who flood big brother and riverdale generals. they are the kids who 'liked that band before they got popular' if blade runner had an abysmal score on rotten tomatos all these people would be pining over what a true genius villeneuve is and what a completely misunderstood masterpiece he has created, which they did from first trailer up until a few hours after it was released when they realised 'normies' might actually like it.

I was definitely implying that he is clearly better than Villeneuve, sorry if the wording made it sound ambiguous.
Referencing his Cannes awards isn't a great counter argument though, Cannes definitely favors politics over actual merit. The very act of giving a joint award to Godard and Dolan is obviously a deliberate statement, it's much more exciting than just giving it to some middle aged dude to share an award between an old and impossibly revered filmmaker and a fresh and bold up and comer.
And you can't possibly tell me that you thought Blue is the Warmest Color deserved to win either...
If you think Dolan is a good filmmaker, state why, don't use awards as "proof".

These. Give those scripts to almost any other director and we'd have ended up with Steven Seagal direct to video-type shit.

Based Goose. Also, where is that page from?

Its almost you understand that director works only with actors and usually should have little to none input to the aesthetics.

dingding

This. There is no emotional/artistic expression in V's movies. They only share a superficial resemblance to actual great movies.

I watched Seven for the first time in ages the other night. It struck me while watching it that Villeneuve is basically a poor man's Fincher.

That's interesting, I had no idea. Now I just wanted to know if the Nabokov reference was also his idea.

These shots are nothing special at all. Michael Mann's (and many others') worst films are visually much, much more interesting than this shit.

Honestly I think you're right, it might not be right to say that Villeneuve took the lazy route or that he didn't give a shit. I think he probably did the very best he could. He just doesn't have the ideas or the natural sensibilities that directors like David Fincher, James Gray, Steve McQueen, Andrew Dominik, Nicolas Winding Refn could've brought to the table, hypothetically.

I'm not quite sure how to define the difference between a hack and a great director. I think a hack can be tasteful and skilled, and Villeneuve is both at this point in his career, just not really talented. It shouldn't even be taken as an insult when a hack is good enough.

And I agree with that great directors can make bad movies, when they're working with the wrong ideas or material. I think a good hack can professionally manage a cast & crew to tastefully execute a 1:1 depiction of a script, can push every department to put in good work towards a common goal. A great director just adds that something extra in his own department, a natural sense for composing images with movement, depth and personality, rhythm and pacing, using images and sound and music all together in their own cinematic language.

they are not even remotely comparable

Which one of Mann's movies should I watch if I've never seen anything by him?

no, not really. Take your Blackhat meme elsewhere

BlackedHat is dogshit.

I disagree. They seem to enjoy very similar subject matter but Fincher's execution is leagues above Villeneuve's.

>Blackhat
Here we go again

Yup, the main flaws of the film are just due to plain bad taste, which result in a tone-deaf piece that just doesn't work how the director wanted it to because he just lacked a proper understanding of cinematic language.

This.

it was a totally shit movie but it looked pretty good for the most part.

leagues above is an understatement. villeneuve has a lot of talent and clearly makes the best out of his source material but he has a long way to go.

This. It's a really good comparison, Fincher doesn't write his own scripts either, but he's a genuinely great director. Let him remake a Villeneuve film with the same script, cast & crew and you'd have no trouble seeing the difference.

How the fuck would you know? This entire argument is built in conjectures. How you know who brought what to the table. All I see here is people mad he delivers a great product without any "I'M DIRECTING" moments. He is a conductor, you don't have to see his hand all the time or where he ends and his team begins. You guys are just trying too hard to shit in one of the few legit young directors in Hollywood.

No. The director is the only person who works with the actors, but the actors are not the only people the director works with.

Because I watched the movie. And I liked it a lot, actually, but none of the things I liked about it are the director's job, and the things I disliked are. Gassner's sets are very nice to look at, and Deakins lights the hell out of every frame, but even so the whole thing is staged & shot like a TV episode. And not even good TV.

This. To be honest, the importance that OP places on camera work that calls attention to itself is distasteful.

It's not just the camera work. I'm fine with still frames and minimalism when it's done right, in the right context. Everything about his films has a subdued, lifeless quality. For 90% it seems like everyone just sits in their lighting and reads lines. On the rare occasion that they move, they're followed by Steadicam, wide shot behind them and close-up in front.

He works with some great actors, but you can tell he's pushing them to be one-note and lifeless as possible. It all kinda works for "Blade Runner," but not in defense of Denis unless all of his films are about Replicants.

>Everything about his films has a subdued, lifeless quality.
and every wes anderson film is super quirky and surreal, and every kusturica film is zany and vibrant. yeah, Villeneuve has a trademark to his craft, he doesnt hop between styles, he knows exactly how to portray his movies, you find this a flaw?