Sam Mendes as a director

Julius No M.D. · January 2016

I just saw American Beauty last night (incredible movie) and wow... I was surprised to see who the director was.

I do have to say that Sam Mendes did a great job directing Spectre overall. He was handed a real turd of a script but how he managed to make it a very entertaining movie is a feat in itself. All of the scenes had a weight and grandiosity to them that a fantasy movie should have. All of the costumes and settings felt right. The action scenes were thunderous (particularly the train fight). The choices of colors, between the pure amnesia-like whiteness of torture scene to the dark eerie atmosphere of Mr. White's home. Despite being such a long movie, every scene flowed and it never got boring. I think if an average director were handed that script, it would have gotten ugly.

chrisisall · January 2016

He did a fine job considering this genre is not his forte'. Way better than Apted (a similar director).

zaphod99 · January 2016

Mendes had a bigger almost Auter like role and was as far as I understand it not merely given a script and told to shoot it. Therefore he is not detached from the deficiencies as he was a big part of the process shaping script and casting and involved 'soup to nuts' as it were.

Julius No M.D. · January 2016

Then, perhaps, that may have been the problem. Maybe they should leave the directing to the director and the writing to the writer.

From what I've seen, Mendes is great at taking a vision and putting it into film (but maybe not great at creating a vision).

Matt S · January 2016

I just watched Road to Perdition and thought everyone did a better job in it than in Skyfall or Spectre. Mendes, Craig and Thomas Newman really showed what they excel at doing. If only Daniel Craig brought that passion and hair to Bond. And Newman used the Bond theme better in Road to Perdition (well, a theme that sounds a lot like the Bond theme) than he did in his Bond films. Bond isn't where Mendes' talents lie, though I think he did Bond much better than any director since John Glen. Marc Forster could have done better if he wasn't trying to copy Paul Greengrass and only tried to be himself.

zaphod99 · January 2016

Julius No M.D. wrote:

Then, perhaps, that may have been the problem. Maybe they should leave the directing to the director and the writing to the writer.

From what I've seen, Mendes is great at taking a vision and putting it into film (but maybe not great at creating a vision).

Possibly. I think EON afforded Mendes and to some extent Daniel unprecedented control (don't forget Daniel recruited Mendes in the first place)

Julius No M.D. · January 2016

Daniel also recruited Forster. Craig is really valuable to EON. EON has been giving him the creative control that even Connery couldn't get.

Loeffelholz · January 2016

I really like Sam Mendes---have been an admirer ever since American Beauty---but I tend to agree with him when he says that he's played out as far as Bond goes. IMO, Eon desperately needs a new director who carry on with Bond in a way that can pay respect to tradition without borrowing so obviously from it.

zaphod99 · January 2016

Loeffelholz wrote:

I really like Sam Mendes---have been an admirer ever since American Beauty---but I tend to agree with him when he says that he's played out as far as Bond goes. IMO, Eon desperately needs a new director who carry on with Bond in a way that can pay respect to tradition without borrowing so obviously from it.

On the same page.

Gassy Man · January 2016

I've never been terribly impressed by Mendes. I recall in grad school a friend coming back from American Beauty and saying it somehow managed to put every cliche about American middle class suburban life into one movie. When I finally saw it, I thought that was a tremendously accurate description. The Road to Perdition nearly put me to sleep, but it set the pattern for Mendes' "action" movies: Conflicted anti-hero lead, ponderous pacing, lots of scenes of roads, cars, and countrysides, understated lighting, music, and dialogue, and a climax that narrows the film rather than widens it.

Mendes is lucky to work with good technical people, so his films look expensive if dour, and he's got more of a sense of narrative than, say, Marc Forster, but I don't find him a remarkable director. He is remarkably lucky, though. He's managed some hits and lots of critical acclaim. He's a wealthy, successful man. But he's no Ford, Thompson, Aldrich, or even Spielberg.

Sam Mendes as a director

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