Plenty of directors have started with a great film or ended with one. But which directors had a stunning debut and an immense final film? We take a look at four contenders…
Every director starts somewhere, and most undoubtedly strive to stand out in their field. Many an iconic director has begun in earnest and worked their way up to greatness. A whole host of directors began in Roger Corman pictures, before having their first masterpiece later on.
It’s also true that most directors strive to finish their careers on a high note. Some of the greatest directors have seen their stock fade somewhat, struggling to match their dizzying highs. Creative juices and inspiration, it seems, are not immune to dilution in time.
Consider this: Which directors came out of the blocks with a stunning feature debut, and then ended their careers with a great film too? It’s time to take a look at the strongest first/last. The rules are simple. Narrative feature films (completed) only, and directors with more than one film (sorry to Charles Laughton and his single masterwork, Night of the Hunter). Directors still working are also out of the game as those last films must be final (whether confirmed by official retirement or the Grim Reaper). Here are the directors with the best first and last films…
Sidney Lumet
I feel like Sidney Lumet might be a little bit underappreciated. Is he held in the same reverence as certain other contemporaries like Francis Ford Coppola, Scorsese or against the recency bias of Tarantino, Nolan and P.T.A. fans? Look back at Lumet’s career and you’ll see a treasure trove of masterful cinema, including Dog Day Afternoon, Network, Serpico, The Verdict, Fail Safe and many more.
Now consider his feature debut, one of the greatest movies ever made. 12 Angry Men sets our titular jurors in a room on a sweltering and sweaty day, tasked with deciding a verdict in a murder trial which initially seems cut and dried until one juror (Henry Fonda) goes against the consensus. For a chamber piece in such a confined space to be so gripping is a testament to Lumet’s skills as a director, and rarely has there been such assurance with a debut.
Lumet remained busy throughout his lengthy career, making his last film in his 80s. Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead was a fittingly great final bow for a director whose work in the 90s was deemed to be a decline on a bar he set so high. Bolstered by a great cast, headed by Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman, the botched heist thriller saw Lumet revisit Dog Day Afternoon territory and showed Lumet just as masterful as he was in his peak years.
Andrei Tarkovsky
If you’re talking a stunning debut feature, and a final feature with a director at his mesmeric best, you’d be hard pressed to top Andrei Tarkovsky. Not only that, but with just seven full features under his belt, the Soviet master never dropped the ball. Every film is considered to range from great to full-blown, cinema-redefining masterpiece, be it Solaris, Stalker, Andrei Rublev, Mirror or Nostaglhia.
Tarkovsky’s auspicious debut, Ivan’s Childhood, would remain his most instantly accessible but no less philosophical and layered than his films to come. It’s his most lithe work too, at a crisp 95 minutes. The WW2 epic forgoes battle for a more intimate story, following a young boy used as a message carrier and thrust into peril. Poetic, dreamy, dazzling and heart-wrenching all in one, it set out Tarkovsky’s modus operandi perfectly, a director focused on emotion and evocation over narrative and little afraid to dive into magical realism.
By the time he came to make his final film, The Sacrifice, Tarkovsky was gravely ill but intent on delivering his vision as meticulously as he always did. This time, the film deals with an unspecified time at the launch point of World War III. Alexander (Erland Josephson) hopes for a way to avert the looming disaster by making a sacrifice in the hope that God, or someone else with the power, might stop it.
Deep, melancholic and philosophical, The Sacrifice is a film that feels part parable and dripping in allegory. It’s also got a bit of Tarkovsky himself deep within the film’s DNA. Ingmar Bergman stalwart Josephson is great, joined by Bergman’s long-time cinematographer Sven Nykvist, and the result is visually stunning (especially the recent 4K transfer). It’s fair to say no director can claim the level of consistency that Tarkovsky achieved.
Francois Truffaut
Truffaut would become a key figure in the French New Wave, the nation’s answer to Italian Neo-realism and a movement that took the ideals and added a vivaciously experimental approach to shooting and cutting the films, as well as narrative structure.
Truffaut’s debut, however, was more restrained than the 60s cinema to follow (including by the likes of Godard). The 400 Blows (not to be confused with Bonnie Blue’s typical Tuesday) was a stunning debut, launching Truffaut impressively out of the gates. In fact, it might be argued that he never made a film quite as good again, and yet he still made exceptional cinema. A troubled boy goes on the lam from school to avoid punishment and indulges in petty crime to pass the time. It features an incredible performance by the young Jean-Pierre Leaud, who says very little but evokes so much childhood, adolescent complexity. It’s brisk, stylistically so assured and emotionally powerful.
Truffaut had ups and downs but was fairly consistent. His final film, Confidentially Yours, was a great bow out with a quintessentially French fusion of screwball comedy and crime thriller as a secretary is tasked with finding the real killer when her boss is framed. It’s Truffaut’s ode to Hitchcock, but made with his own inimitable style.
John Huston
A respected character actor with a commanding presence and part of a Hollywood family institution. John Huston’s skills behind the camera were no less assured than his acting. His directorial work was a little inconsistent, but the highs were notable, like Key Largo, The African Queen, The Asphalt Jungle and The Night of the Iguana.
His debut was based on the iconic murder mystery book of the same name. The Maltese Falcon, the legendary Dashiell Hammett book with the eponymous Private Detective, Sam Spade, was more than adeptly brought to life with one of film noir’s most essential works. Humphrey Bogart is pitch-perfect as the inimitable gumshoe, and Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre, fellow Casablanca co-stars, provide stellar support.
Huston was prolific, and his final film was a fitting final curtain for a director who worked through a number of eras and stayed relevant. The Dead was underappreciated at the time, but it’s a short, intimate and fairly low-key elegiac work by Huston’s grandiose standards. You’d expect nothing less, given it was based on a James Joyce short story. Still, bolstered by daughter, Anjelica Huston’s compelling performance, it’s a triumphantly nuanced, Bergman-esque final curtain for Huston as a director who was in ill health during the shoot.
Honourable Mentions:
Robert Bresson (Angels of Sin and L’ Argent), Ingmar Bergman (Crisis and Fanny and Alexander), Akira Kurosawa (Sanshiro Sugata, Madadayo), Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Paprika).
Which director has had the best first and last pictures? Let us know on our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
Tom Jolliffe
