The Great Adjectives

I was reading an article at www.thefilmjournal.com by a man named Gregory Avery. In the article, he was reviewing a newly-released book about Alfred Hitchcock, called Hitchcock Style by Jean-Pierre Dufreigne. I was taken by a sentence in the first paragraph of the article which read, "...Hitchcock can now claim the singular honor of having become an adjective". I always knew of the term "Hitchcockian" and I knew what it meant, but I had never once thought about it being an adjective. Not once. To break down a director to such a base level would seem almost disrespectful, but I don't think a filmmaker can achieve a higher mark. This is a filmmaker who has created a body of work so specific in theme and/or visuals that their name can be used to describe somebody else's work. Thus, the term "adjective". It's really quite something.

I can think of several directors who deserve to be adjectives. Of course, Alfred Hitchcock is the first one that comes to mind. The main themes of his movies were formed by his strong visual sense. The simple tricks he did with the camera; the things he didn't show you; these were the visual techniques of a man who was feeding the suspense of the story. There are only so many avenues a screenplay can go down in the way of moving the suspense along. A great director can take it the rest of the way. Hitchcock famously stated, "A bomb is under the table and it explodes: that is surprise; the bomb is under the table but it doesn't explode: that is suspense". He implored this methodology in such films as Rear Window, Strangers On A Train, Vertigo, The Birds, Notorious, Psycho, and North By Northwest. It's almost as if he was forcing you to look at what was going on and then make you feel guilty about it, afterwards. He was just as much a prankster as he was a "master of suspense". A generation of directors would soon use the "Hitchcockian" method to further their own stories: Steven Spielberg, M. Night Shyamalan, and quite blatantly, Brian De Palma. I, personally, believe that Spielberg did the best job of it in Jaws. What little you saw of the shark made it that much more terrifying. We never knew when this thing was going to attack, we just knew that it would and that, my friends, is the bomb that doesn't explode.

Another director who I immediately think of as an adjective, is Frank Capra. Here's a director who has drawn about as much derision as he has praise from critics and fans alike. Personally, I know more people who enjoy his movies than don't, but he is a specific type of filmmaker. "Capraesque" is the term. Any movie that bases itself around an idealistic principle or has a yearning for a simpler time where patriotism didn't seem so overwhelming, is considered "Capraesque". He was truly the director of the people. With titles like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, It Happened One Night (first film to ever win the big five at the Oscars), You Can't Take It With You, and It's A Wonderful Life, under his belt, it's hard to refute the fact that he was America's director. When I watch Rob Reiner's The American President or Ivan Reitman's Dave, I automatically think "Capraesque". The idealistic principle is always prevalent in both of those films. In fact, Aaron Sorkin alludes to it in the screenplay of The American President. The Annette Benning character, a lobbyist, has just arrived in Washington to have a meeting at the White House. She comes up to the guard at the main gate to the building and introduces herself. She's very excited about what she's doing and her co-worker tells her that she doesn't have to tell the guard her name. She apologizes and says, "I was just trying to preserve the sort of 'Capraesque' quality". The co-worker, cynically, says "He doesn't know what that means". Without missing a beat the guard says, "Sure I do. Frank Capra. Great American director of It's A Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington". It's right there. Sorkin has paid tribute to the man with actual dialogue about him. Two other great examples are Phil Alden Robinson's use of, what I like to call, "realistic fantasy" in Field of Dreams and Frank Darabont's use of the America of old in The Majestic. The former is more of a modern-day version of a Capra film, while the latter would fit in the exact time frame of any Capra classic. There is one scene from each film that takes the Capra sentiment and enhances its ideas. In Field of Dreams, it's James Earl Jones' speech about baseball and the country who yearns for the days when things were much simpler. In The Majestic, it's Jim Carrey's testimony, as a Hollywood screenwriter, to the HUAC. A testimony fighting the forces who say that he's not American enough. "Capraesque" defines the better nature in all of us.

There's one more adjective that I'd like to discuss and that's "Felliniesque". I'm going to preface this by saying that I'm not a big Federico Fellini fan by any stretch of the imagination. I do think his work is undeniably important to not only the Italian cinema, but worldwide, as well. Through the few films I've viewed, though, he's not quite my cup of tea. I am going to be the guy in the movie line, standing behind Woody Allen in Annie Hall and say that La Strada is my personal favorite of his. I've got plenty more to see, though, and I'll leave it at that. Fellini's films, like Hitchcock, tell as much visually as the plot does. He's probably one of the greatest visual minds the cinema has ever seen. If it wasn't his camera, it was what he put in front of his camera that enhanced the viewer's experience. Movies like Juliet of the Spirits, 8 1/2, La Dolce Vita, Fellini Satyricon, and Amarcord are filled to the brim with the unique visuals that almost always call for multiple interpretations. He, too, was a prankster of sorts, who always seemed to be one step ahead of his viewers. I know he was one step ahead of me when I was watching Juliet of the Spirits. It's a little bit more difficult to pinpoint filmmakers whose work has been considered "Felliniesque", but I think David Cronenberg, David Lynch, Terry Gilliam, and even Oliver Stone, to an extent, have probably used Fellini as a compass at one time or another. Watching Stone's Natural Born Killers is a lot like watching a Fellini film. It's physically and emotionally exhausting, but you can't really take your eyes off of it. Even Martin Scorsese has borrowed from Fellini. In his documentary My Voyage to Italy, Scorsese discusses Fellini's I Vitelloni and its characters. He states that it had a major impact on his breakthrough crime drama Mean Streets. The "Felliniesque" quality is harder to pinpoint mainly because it's harder to duplicate. It's one of the most specific.

There are so many other filmmakers who, with just a little more time, will soon be adjectives. Quentin Tarantino, P.T. Anderson, Wes Anderson, M. Night Shyamalan, and Alexander Payne all have qualities that are specific enough to be duplicated for generations to come. They're all true storytellers and visual mavericks. They follow in the footsteps of their heroes: Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Joel and Ethan Coen, and Steven Spielberg. They break convention and come out on the other end unscathed. The biggest risk-takers end up getting to be the greatest.