obloquy .... by using the term IGNORANT and then offering a definition, you seem to presume that I am not aware or have not seen the films you later cite as great films by great directors. How could you make that judgment about me if you failed to ask me first if I had seen them or other works by those directors? Only then could you determine if I was ignorant of their existence.
I do not judge any director as GREAT by a single film or even a few films. I feel you must take their body of work over a career. All four of the men I selected have a extensive body of work over several decades than can be examined and studied. They also met the test of time.
I fully agree with Lalwende that Alfonso Cuaron has made some excellent films and is a outstanding talent. I look forward to at least ten to twenty more years of his work. After we have an extensive body of his work, then we can see if he stands up there with the David Leans of this world.
Regarding Stanley Kubrick - PATHS OF GLORY is one of my 25 favorite films of all time. A truly great film. I think the only time he equaled that effort was with STRANGELOVE. But the man was a true talent in a spotty career.
Orson Welles - reinvented the cinema that D.W. Griffith gave the world with new camera angles, different ways to tell a story, and made film more of an art form. And he did this all with a single film - CITIZEN KANE. Welles never equaled that effort - of course, if KANE is the greatest film of all time then that would be nearly impossible. Welles himself said that he felt his follow-up film THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS was even better in some ways but it was so edited and chopped up that we may never know.
WCH - I cannot speak for Jackson, but my feeling about the Mouth of Sauron scene is that it shows that Aragorn no longer is willing to go through the motions of phony diplomacy - something which Sauron attempts to use only for his own purposes and is not any kind of real negotiation anyways. Aragorn recognizes this and knows that in minutes all hell will break loose so decides to rid Middle-earth of a rather large piece of garbage right there on the spot. Does that make him (in your words) a war criminal? Then we are back to the old internet discussion trap of a definition of terms.
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