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Hitchcock or Spielberg. Who's better? Why?
- Thread starter Rowdy Roddy McDowall
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My wife and I actually talked about this a while back, who do we think is the best director of all.
We agreed that probably the best gauge is how well they direct across multiple genres... action, adventure, scifi, fantasy, horror, thriller, historical, etc.
While many directors are outstanding (Hitchcock, Kubrick, Del Toro, Cameron, etc.), a lot of them really only focus on one or two genres with their films.
So by using this gauge, we both concluded that Spielberg is the best. He has done pretty much every genre, and a vast majority of his films are great to excellent.
Few directors crossed genres like Spielberg has, and even fewer successfully. I dare say none have.
We agreed that probably the best gauge is how well they direct across multiple genres... action, adventure, scifi, fantasy, horror, thriller, historical, etc.
While many directors are outstanding (Hitchcock, Kubrick, Del Toro, Cameron, etc.), a lot of them really only focus on one or two genres with their films.
So by using this gauge, we both concluded that Spielberg is the best. He has done pretty much every genre, and a vast majority of his films are great to excellent.
Few directors crossed genres like Spielberg has, and even fewer successfully. I dare say none have.
Born nearly half a century & half a world apart. It's like asking who's better, Tchaikovsky or Duke Ellington? There's an argument to be made for either. I'd say the joy I get from their work tips the scale to Spielberg. The respect I have for it tips towards Hitch. It's very similar to how I feel about Stanley Kubrick compared to the likes of Orson Welles
Hitch was more of a pioneer. Much of that blazed frontier having been paved for the likes of Spielberg, who was more from an era of revolution
It just means Spielberg is the most well-rounded or broad-sweeping director. That I can't really argue. I even like his comedies like 1941 (Which was a flop)
Frankly though, at the end of the day, no one imho was ever better at the actual art of the direction of a motion picture than Stanley Kubrick. Part of me thinks he might have been the industry's utmost savant, which might also explain the accounts that he could be a monumental asshole to work with lol
Plus you have to gauge what their availability of access was. I personally think Orson Welles could've shown himself to be a much more profoundly masterful director then any of the above, we're the available opportunities there for him to do so. He too was another one like Kubrick that was genius level. It just didn't flourish as well, & for no reasons that have anything to do with his directorial ability. Contrarily, it was all the other stuff that gets their movies made where he floundered
Likewise, industry standards might've held Hitch back I think. He was an older man & seasoned master, before he'd made some of his most memorable & renowned achievements, around the mid 1950s. I have to think constraints were keeping him from that prior. It's the main reason I disagree with Tarantino's claim that older directors are destined to be lesser than they'd been (when remarking on his retirement)
I will say though, that even in having come from an era of revolution, Spielberg ended up being maybe the greatest film MOGUL ever. There may never be anyone who manages to pull off all he accomplished. That still doesn't make him the best director. Some of his work is actually a little pedestrian from time to time. This was the guy who made The Terminal with Tom Hanks. The blandest film fare that ever was imho
Hitch was more of a pioneer. Much of that blazed frontier having been paved for the likes of Spielberg, who was more from an era of revolution
I don't know I'd agree that's the best metric. Maybe it's best for deciding who's the better entertainer, but not necessarily who's the better at direction. How well you choose in what ways you will apply your craft is not necessarily the gauge for how well it's applied.
It just means Spielberg is the most well-rounded or broad-sweeping director. That I can't really argue. I even like his comedies like 1941 (Which was a flop)
Frankly though, at the end of the day, no one imho was ever better at the actual art of the direction of a motion picture than Stanley Kubrick. Part of me thinks he might have been the industry's utmost savant, which might also explain the accounts that he could be a monumental asshole to work with lol
Plus you have to gauge what their availability of access was. I personally think Orson Welles could've shown himself to be a much more profoundly masterful director then any of the above, we're the available opportunities there for him to do so. He too was another one like Kubrick that was genius level. It just didn't flourish as well, & for no reasons that have anything to do with his directorial ability. Contrarily, it was all the other stuff that gets their movies made where he floundered
Likewise, industry standards might've held Hitch back I think. He was an older man & seasoned master, before he'd made some of his most memorable & renowned achievements, around the mid 1950s. I have to think constraints were keeping him from that prior. It's the main reason I disagree with Tarantino's claim that older directors are destined to be lesser than they'd been (when remarking on his retirement)
I will say though, that even in having come from an era of revolution, Spielberg ended up being maybe the greatest film MOGUL ever. There may never be anyone who manages to pull off all he accomplished. That still doesn't make him the best director. Some of his work is actually a little pedestrian from time to time. This was the guy who made The Terminal with Tom Hanks. The blandest film fare that ever was imho
Kubrick was definitely among the most gifted directors of all time. I definitely don't dispute that.
You make a fair point about Spielberg and the era.
Perhaps this might be a good gauge... how well one directs with the available tools of the time.
In that regard, I would have to give it to Hitchcock instead of Spielberg. Hitchcock did more with less tools available. Kubrick and Welles would fall into that category, too.
Perhaps a better thread question... make a list of, say, 10 directors. Make a voting game of it, give it a couple weeks, and see who gets the most votes.
You make a fair point about Spielberg and the era.
Perhaps this might be a good gauge... how well one directs with the available tools of the time.
In that regard, I would have to give it to Hitchcock instead of Spielberg. Hitchcock did more with less tools available. Kubrick and Welles would fall into that category, too.
Perhaps a better thread question... make a list of, say, 10 directors. Make a voting game of it, give it a couple weeks, and see who gets the most votes.
As I know the proper answer I'll withhold my judgment to keep things fair.What say you all?
I don’t see how the two directors can be fairly compared based on their movies, which are very different. Hitchcock was the undisputed master of suspense, while Spielb is the master of……everything else.
Honestly, Spielberg lands in a very cushy Goldilocks Zone, in a number of different areas. He landed arguably one of the greatest film composers of all time, damn near exclusively, who featured a style that revolutionized film music in his films. He landed during the FX revolution of Lucasfilm (Of which he was a major influencer to his credit) And he landed in the era of Blockbuster mania kicked off by himself & Lucas. They had the world at their fingertips, & he made better use of it than anyone could've imagined
Anyone who came before did nearly as magnificent work (Maybe more so) with much less. Take David Lean, who is likely a great influence of Spielberg's, with his Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago, Bridge on The River Kwai etc... That dude was a monster
There's no reason to make this a binary choice. Both were / are among the greatest directors of all time, excelling in very, very different aspects of cinema. There's absolutely no reason to say one is better than the other; it's like asking if someone would like steak or lobster for dinner. My answer would be, "Both."
Hitchcock by far. I’d hold at least four or five of his films higher than anything Spielberg ever did. Vertigo, Rear Window, Rebecca at the very least.
Spielberg had trouble getting away from his fondness of magical children as protagonists and the grownup world as the villain. Even Schindler’s List I think gets overrated just because of its obvious moral imperatives. The Holocaust is a topic it’s easier to get away with reductionism because there’s so little moral nuance in the topic of genocide. But there are better Holocaust films out there.
Not to say Spielberg wasn’t great at what he did. He just couldn’t stop substituting sentimentalism for nuance.
But I’d rank Tarkovsky, Scorsese, Bergman, Antonioni, Varda, Ozu, Mizoguchi, Kurosawa, Panahi, Wong Kar Wai, Coen, Malick, Kubrick, Murnau, Tarr, Bresson, Bunuel, Lynch, Kieslowski, Vlacil, Angelopolous, Wenders, Ray all above both.
Spielberg had trouble getting away from his fondness of magical children as protagonists and the grownup world as the villain. Even Schindler’s List I think gets overrated just because of its obvious moral imperatives. The Holocaust is a topic it’s easier to get away with reductionism because there’s so little moral nuance in the topic of genocide. But there are better Holocaust films out there.
Not to say Spielberg wasn’t great at what he did. He just couldn’t stop substituting sentimentalism for nuance.
But I’d rank Tarkovsky, Scorsese, Bergman, Antonioni, Varda, Ozu, Mizoguchi, Kurosawa, Panahi, Wong Kar Wai, Coen, Malick, Kubrick, Murnau, Tarr, Bresson, Bunuel, Lynch, Kieslowski, Vlacil, Angelopolous, Wenders, Ray all above both.
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Not even sure why we're bothering to have a discussion since Foxhot is just going to pop in like the film history version of John McLaughlin and tell us what the "correct" answer was anyway.
That's such a tough call to make. I think because they're both from radically different eras in filmmaking. They've both made some incredible movies and the context of their experiences are vastly different. They've made use of different technologies available in their time periods. I think I'd give the edge to Hitchcock for the pure artistry of it.
I always found it interesting & slightly hypocritical, that he came out against Benigni's La vita è bella (Which I adore) for not handling the topic more seriously, when Schindler's List itself suffers from what I call Silver Lining syndrome. It's not actually a story about the evil of the Holocaust. It's about the one German anyone knew anything about, that did something good during the holocaust. It's the same with Saving Private Ryan. Not a war movie about what terrible & violent things soldiers had to do to other men (For that movie go see Platoon) Spielberg's is about men dying in a war to save someone. These are extremely choice story selections that are almost at odds with the reality of the events, which leads me to think that despite all his variety of film genres, he wouldn't be able to do a dark movie, like Platoon or Fury. Kubrick on the other hand? That dude can be funny or dark
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Look at a movie like Sophie’s Choice (For which I vastly prefer the book for reasons I won’t get into here.) Compare the cold efficiency of the Nazis there to the more childlike evil in Schindler’s List. “I pardon you.” The Nazis were more evil than an impressionable baby lacking impulse control.
Oh certainly, but look who we're talking about, the guy who made Raiders of The Lost Ark (A fave of mine from him) The Nazis are a gag. There's a certain catharsis in deliberately defanging modern history's most grim villains by painting them as less human or infantile or buffoons. Even Chaplain did that. It's a movie hallmark, & I don't think Spielberg has it in him to paint a picture of them that sees them as truly real. I often wonder what Spielberg's impression of Jojo Rabbit was, which seemed to go even farther at playing off the theme less seriously than even Benigni did, or Inglorious Basterds, which takes things into utter absurdity.
Oh, also let me add to this earlier thought with the on topic Hitchcock too. He can stretch in ways Spielberg couldn't imho, where a movie like Psycho was more sinister than anyone was even ready for, & yet, To Catch a Thief while having an adult plot, was very playful, uncharacteristically so maybe even.
I'd say A Color Purple was the closest Spielberg ever got to being gritty the way others can, & even that, as wonderful as it is, is not quite. He's, at his core, our fantasy man. He can brush us up against dark realities, but can only do so if there's some element of a bright side or silver lining.
His version of War of the Worlds was probably him at his darkest. That and parts of A.I, which he ironically acquired from Kubrick, were quite dark, though I don't know if that was Kubrick or Spielberg's call.
Notwithstanding that this isn't an actual question or sentence, your first sentence declared that you had the One True Judgment. You don't get to backtrack.
Are you having a stroke?
I remember Cameron’s interview with Spielberg about Jurassic Park and how he would have made it R rated. It would have been nice to have seen that movie.
But I think NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is fully the equal of what any of the above have ever done.
I would have paid a weeks wages just to have watched a younger Steven’s face as that nihilistic masterpiece washed over him. He could have recoiled in horror, bless him. He once said that he re-watched Invaders from Mars hoping to “will” the possessed father into not slapping his son…that…some how…the act of Spielberg watching a movie could change it. Now—that’s a hallmark of a Maker. Same with another favorite of mine…although a very different man—John Waters.
He watched some Sci Fi schlock and when the rest of the kids were disappointed that it was just movie magic—-THAT was what turned John on to film. These vignettes are what make life.
But I think NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is fully the equal of what any of the above have ever done.
I would have paid a weeks wages just to have watched a younger Steven’s face as that nihilistic masterpiece washed over him. He could have recoiled in horror, bless him. He once said that he re-watched Invaders from Mars hoping to “will” the possessed father into not slapping his son…that…some how…the act of Spielberg watching a movie could change it. Now—that’s a hallmark of a Maker. Same with another favorite of mine…although a very different man—John Waters.
He watched some Sci Fi schlock and when the rest of the kids were disappointed that it was just movie magic—-THAT was what turned John on to film. These vignettes are what make life.
Hitch.
Spielberg is a great (and I do mean GREAT) popular filmmaker, but with Hitchcock you always had the sense of being in the presence of a singular mind with a distinctive vision all his own. Nobody, but nobody, else could have made his movies, regardless of technical skill, because nobody else saw the world with his unique quirks and obsessions.
Spielberg is a great (and I do mean GREAT) popular filmmaker, but with Hitchcock you always had the sense of being in the presence of a singular mind with a distinctive vision all his own. Nobody, but nobody, else could have made his movies, regardless of technical skill, because nobody else saw the world with his unique quirks and obsessions.
