Welcome to round three of Face/Off! For the next six weeks we will be pitting two directors who won their round two matches against each other and letting YOU, the commenters, decide on who reigns supreme!
You have to decide which director is better than the other? Various factors could play into your decision from who takes the biggest risks to who has the more distinctive style. Remember, it isn’t so much about which director has made the most money at the box office or won the most awards, but, in your mind, which director simply makes better films.
Let’s analyze the filmography of today’s challengers.
Yasujirō Ozu
Who He Beat in Round Two: John Woo (7 to 2)
1920s & 1930s Silent Directorial Features: Student Romance: Days of Youth (1929), Walk Cheerfully (1930), I Flunked, But… (1930), That Night’s Wife (1930), The Lady and the Beard (1931), Tokyo Chorus (1931), I Was Born, But… (1932), Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth? (1932), Woman of Tokyo (1933), Dragnet Girl (1933), Passing Fancy (1933), A Mother Should be Loved (1934), A Story of Floating Weeds (1934), An Inn in Tokyo (1935)
1930s & 1940s Sound Directorial Features: The Only Son (1936), What Did the Lady Forget? (1937), Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (1941), There Was a Father (1942), The Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947), A Hen in the Wind (1948), Late Spring (1949)
1950s & 1960s Sound Directorial Features: The Munekata Sisters (1950), Early Summer (1951), The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice (1952), Tokyo Story (1953), Early Spring (1956), Tokyo Twilight (1957), Equinox Flower (1958), Good Morning (1959), Floating Weeds (1959), Late Autumn (1960), The End of Summer (1961), An Autumn Afternoon (1962)
Billy Wilder
Who He Beat in Round Two: John Huston (8 to 2)
1930s & 1940s Directorial Features: Mauvaise Graine (1934), The Major and the Minor (1942), Five Graves to Cairo (1943), Double Idemnity (1944), The Lost Weekend (1945), Death Mills (1945), The Emperor Waltz (1948), A Foreign Affair (1948)
1950s Directorial Features: Sunset Boulevard (1950), Ace in the Hole (1951), Stalag 17 (1953), Sabrina (1954), The Seven Year Itch (1955), The Spirit of St. Louis (1957), Love in the Afternoon (1957), Love in the Afternoon (1957), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Some Like It Hot (1959)
1960s to 1980s Directorial Features: The Apartment (1960), One, Two, Three (1961), Irma la Douce (1963), Kiss Me, Stupid (1964), The Fortune Cookie (1966), The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), Avanti! (1972), The Front Page (1974), Fedora (1978), Buddy Buddy (1981)
Only one can move on to the Battle Royale. Let the Face/Off begin!
Discuss in the comments below your favorite films from each director and who should advance to the quarterfinals.
