What once-inspiring filmmaker's career has been the most disappointing
to you? — Paul
Many of the great directors who came to prominence in the '70s have had
a rough ride in the age of the comic-book blockbuster. Scorsese and
Demme come to mind: Both have struggled valiantly, and with diminishing
results, to make films on their own humanist terms. That said, the
director who may have been most neutered by this era is Philip Kaufman.
His best work is monumental: The Right Stuff (1983), which gets better
each time you see it, is an addictive pageant of life-size American
heroism, and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) is, to me, as
moving a portrait of adult sexuality and love as the cinema has given
us. But after the failure of 1990's Henry & June, Kaufman has been
reduced to anonymous genre duds (Rising Sun, Twisted) and the faux outrage of Quills. I haven't stopped hoping that he'll find the will — and clout — to be an artist again.
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