Maverick is a word that’s often tossed around when people talk of directors, so as we prepared this issue I looked it up in the dictionary: “Someone who holds independent views and who refuses to conform to the accepted or orthodox thinking on a subject.” That seemed to fit a lot of the feature directors whose work we read about this month.

Nichols, Almodóvar, Friedkin, Gilliam, Kurosawa, Taymor and Wilder. Each, in his or her own way, is a great directing talent because of their single-minded and unconventional drive to achieve truly unique visions—no matter how many obstacles are tossed in their path by those who couldn’t or wouldn’t share their point of view.

Rising above convention to develop something out of the ordinary has never been easy in any field. But in our profession—where sequels and remakes are the order of the day and test-audience scores wield great influence—remaining true to your vision can seem like an uphill battle. And yet, when an idea or image is captured in a compelling new way, the results can be terrifically influential.

Consider Akira Kurosawa. This master filmmaker literally created new ways of seeing images on screen. For instance, he used the entire water supply on location to create the effect of heavy rain in Rashômon—even dyeing the water black with calligraphic ink to achieve his desired effect.   

Or William Friedkin. His car versus train sequence in The French Connection, itself homage to the car chase in Bullitt, holds up as one of the great action sequences ever filmed. But it wasn’t a walk in the park. As Friedkin tells it, the New York winter of 1970-71 was freezing cold, and there were the immense logistical details of capturing a car chasing a train. But he was undaunted and pushed all the conventional wisdom about filming in a big city to get the vision precisely as he intended.

Or Pedro Almodóvar. He has the rare distinction of becoming an adjective, “Almodóvarian,” used to describe “stylistic flamboyance” in film. And like the other directors in this issue, it is his perfectionism and unorthodoxy that defines him.

But to return to my dictionary for a moment, I found a second definition of maverick: “an unbranded animal who has been separated from its mother and the herd. It can become the property of whoever finds it.” This also struck a chord for me about something that is as important to the Guild as the celebration of excellence. We held two events recently, to honor directors of movies for television and reality directors. Both genres are having a difficult time because of the volatility of the marketplace. And many of our members who direct reality have given up work to stay in the Guild because too much of it, especially in basic cable, is being done non-union. We’re fighting as hard as we can to organize this arena but it’s difficult and takes time.

We can’t afford to lose anybody and have to understand that our only real leverage lies in our “herd,” in our unity, in corralling all the directorial talent in every area of audio-visual entertainment. We’re all part of one family and need to protect all our mavericks to keep the Guild strong.

Best,

Michael Apted
President, Directors Guild of America