Journeyman directors of whose existence you have only recently become aware

Or have been reminded of, perhaps.

Preferably infrequently or never mentioned on ILX.

Such as Peter Tewksbury.

His second (and last) Elvis movie, The Trouble With Girls, is surprisingly good.

Speaking of Peter's, Peter Hyams.

Archie Mayo, who mostly did social problem films.

Vincent Sherman, mediocre noir director.

Richard Quine, a not-bad career highlighted by collabs with Blake Edwards.

John Gilling, Hammer's go to guy for so-so swashbucklers (I guess maybe Plague Of The Zombies makes him more than a journeyman?).

Dunno if ppl like Phil Karlson and Jospeh H Lewis count? Total journeymen during their time, but strong cults these days.

Those last two shouldn’t really count, but the four in you first post are excellent.

Fred Schepisi

Christopher Nolan

waiting for the Criterion Alan Smithee box

Christopher Nolan

I know this is meant as a Nolan diss but it's actually pretty unfair towards the noble profession of the journeyman director. When's the last time Nolan directed a competent 70 minute thriller?

exactly

Oh yeah that's the point, auteur theory is flawed as fuck

Is there such a thing as a "journeyman" auteur or art-film director? Or would you just call them a mediocre artist?

There's also rans but I associate journeyman with doing a competent job within an established system, which I guess doesn't really work for art films (but it might for mainstream European cinemas that get tagged as art films because they're subtitled).

Julien Leclercq. Makes French crime movies that are all 80-85 minutes. Michael Mann on a budget with an editor.

Gregory La Cava.

Re: journeyman auteur, the whole point is auteur isn't a platonic ideal, it's a way of thinking and pointing, when nudniks swallow it whole is when you end up with a Nolan

Hathaway might be another way of thinking about that as a person who doesn't seem to have been committed to his own myth tho

The original cahiers notion was centred around genre directors really, hi dere Hitch

I think every other article/DVD commentary I happen upon these days relating to some classic Hollywood director attacks the auteur theory, but then always ends up making the case for said director within auteurist frameworks of individual style, thematic concerns, etc.

I don't think there were any non-genre directors working in American cinema at the time the cahiers crowd was woking on the theory, tbf.

Anyway, returning to listing for listing's sake:

John Cromwell
W S Van Dyke
Frank Tuttle

Tim Story, who I only know of because of that one episode of On Cinema.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Story

Simon Wincer

I don't think there were any non-genre directors working in American cinema at the time the cahiers crowd was woking on the theory, tbf

Nicholas Ray, arguably? Maybe Sirk?

New answer to the thread title = Joe Wright

Jesus, what a twat

"Wright said the film (Darkest Hour) is a rebuke to Donald Trump"

hah hah what a cunt!

BBC blurb for that shit described Churchill as choosing to fight for "the greater good" which is a weird way to spell "the British Empire"

I watched Ida Lupino's The Hitch-Hiker recently, she only directed a handful of movies and followed with lots of tv work but that was a memorable noir that deserves the credit it gets.

yeah Hitch-Hiker is amazing. Lupino's other films are also interesting - women-led melodramas about scenarios of great interest to women at the time but rarely discussed without euphemism (if at all) in Old Hollywood. I've seen Not Wanted, about a woman who gets pregnant by a guy who turns out to be a creep and who ghosts on the whole situation. what is she supposed to do? worth watching.

She's made some of my favourite old Hollywood movies. The Hitch-Hiker is the most typically noir, but her 'domestic noirs' are maybe even better, at least the touchingly empathetic THE BIGAMIST, and the raw depiction of life after rape in OUTRAGE - the latter stunningly shot. Her noirs are as deftly symbolic in their visuals as the best noirs, only she deals with the nuclear family, gender roles, and lots of location shots - should be lauded as one of the great originals among Hollywood directors.

very well put! i feel like she's been coming more on the radar even in the few years since i've been getting myself up to speed on "film" and Film Discourse. future generations may well take it for granted that she's one of the names you have to know from that era.

yeah The Bigamist is really good as well and sort of confounded my expectations. I thought it was going to be about a wrong 'un but it's a very tender melodrama, with an Ozu like melancholy to it.

OTM!

Ida Lupino well on her way to becoming generally rated an auteur I think, which is good not bad. They'll have a tougher time with Dorothy Azner, who despite being criterionized does fit pretty neatly into the journeywoman definition.

Came here to stop derailing the Fritz Lang thread with Archie Mayo talk, but also now want to say that Ida Lupino is probably well-above journeyman status at this point and that a slew of Dorothy Azner’s films are about to go off of Criterion at the end of the month not sure where one would start watching.

I’ll start by spelling her name correctly, Dorothy Arzner.

Oh maybe they already went away.

Um, lol, sorry, I was confusing her with Doris Wishman. For Dorothy Arzner Criterion has a pair of pre-code Paramounts along with a German documentary about her.

I haven't seen an Arzner film better than okay ftr

Oh wait, another short doc as well.

Okay ftr?

Is there such a thing as a "journeyman" auteur or art-film director? Or would you just call them a mediocre artist?

To answer myself...what about Bertrand Tavernier? Too celebrated, in France at least?