#53. Elia Kazan
Ranked ListThough he doesn't make the kind of films I'm drawn to, he's such a good director that I usually end up surprised by how much I like his work. (I think of him as Sam Mendes if Mendes was American Beauty good all the time.) Among the ones I've seen, Gentleman's Agreement stands out as an early example of the Academy rewarding a film and filmmaker for one of their worst, and America America is such a personal project and so far outside his usual I wish I was more of a supporter.
There are 5 titles I haven't seen and while my current impulse is to watch them all, I should probably choose wisely and move on. I'm open to recommendations for...
Pinky (1949): racial dramas from this long ago tend to be a live wire
Man on a Tightrope (1953): highest-rated among those I haven't seen, but this is the most likely for me because of Gloria Grahame
The Arrangement (1969): Kirk Douglas, Faye Dunaway, Deborah Kerr and Richard Boone. But this one makes me the most nervous.
The Visitors (1972): looks intense, plus it's based on the same incident that inspired Casulties of War
The Last Tycoon (1976): I hear nothing but bad, but the cast in incredible, it's Kazan's final film and the amount of negative word about makes me even more curious