Decade Wrap Up: Top 5 Directors of the 1920s

We've reached the end of our second decade of film watching.  Time for the obligatory look back at the last ten years... what we liked, what we didn't and what we've learned.  It will come as a shock to no one reading this blog that I love my directors more than actors or writers so I cannot think of a better place to start than with the men who set the vision for my favorite films of the twenties.

My top five directors are...



5. Carl Theodor Dreyer
The Passion of Joan of Arc.That's all that really needs to be said, right?  I mean has there ever been a marriage of bold direction and fearless lead performance like that film.  Dreyer also made Michael, which I did not care for (but direction was not its primary issue).  Still, The Passion of Joan of Arc gets this director a lifetime pass to the amazing direction club.

4. Fred Niblo
You need at least one crowd pleaser on a list like this and who better than the director who turned Douglas Fairbanks into an action star and who worked with Rudolph Valentino in Blood and Sand (well directed from a terrible script). Add in the fantastic early version of Ben Hur and you have a man who knows how to mix his action with his melodrama.

3. Fritz Lang
Lang may be my favorite director of the 1920s, which is not quite the same as being the best. He has the heart of a genre geek married to a modern filmmaking style. While Woman in the Moon may have been a slight misstep (in that is was merely okay), Metropolis, Dr. Mabuse and Spiders Part 2 all captured my imagination.

2. Buster Keaton
I came into 100 Years of Movies ready, willing and able to fall in love with the 1920s' most well-known comedy star. My mistake was thinking that star would be Charlie Chaplin. Keaton is a great actor, but as a director he is absolutely fearless. The logistics of shooting The General would be enough to break most directors. Keaton one-upped himself with the finale to Steamboat Bill Jr.

1. F. W. Murnau
Nosferatu. The Last Laugh. Faust. Sunrise.  If there's a director who had a better decade, I have not seen him yet. Even when he wasn't great (Faust), he was always visually fascinating. And no one jumped from genre to genre the way he did. Equally at ease in gothic horror and small drama, Murnau is easily my pick as best director of the 1920s. The tragedy is knowing his premature death in the early thirties means I am nearing the end of his oeuvre.