1 and 2. Kim Ki-Duk and Park Chan-Wook
For prickly provocation, it's hard to outdo the upstart Korean directors that have been shocking, scandalizing, and grossing-out art house audiences and festivalgoers for much of the '00s. Kim Ki-Duk got the buzz started with movies like The Isle and Bad Guy, which detailed the extremes of sexual obsession via scenes of women swallowing fishhooks or getting forced into prostitution. Around the same time, Park Chan-Wook—who'd previously helmed the slick, crowd-pleasing action-mystery Joint Security Area—made the taboo-shattering Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, which squeezes black comedy from the accidental death of a child and features a hero who gets back at black-market organ-dealers by eating their kidneys. Since their respective breakthroughs, Kim has made the far gentler Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…And Spring and 3-Iron, while Park has beefed up his "vengeance" series with the more accessible Oldboy and Sympathy For Lady Vengeance. Although given that Oldboy has been cited as inspiration for Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui, these Koreans' controversial days may not be gone for good.
3. Uwe Boll
An inclination for combativeness is a given among notorious cinematic provocateurs, but only Uwe Boll, the thin-skinned German behind many of the worst video game adaptations of all time, has the iron cojones to literally challenge his detractors to fisticuffs in a publicity stunt worthy of P.T Barnum. After being hailed and derided as the new Ed Wood by a generation of anonymous Internet smartasses, Uwe Boll climbed into the ring and opened a can of whoop-ass on a number of his most voracious detractors in matches that will be included on the DVD of Postal, a brazenly offensive satire that explores the funny side of 9/11 and Osama Bin Laden. Afterwards, one of Boll's bruised and battered critics opined "I think he's a jerk. This might be PR, but I don't want to keep getting punched in the head." Moviegoers everywhere could relate, though continually being pummeled with laughably awful, disturbingly prolific filmmaking is a lot easier on the melon than getting punched repeatedly by a towering, enraged shlockmeister.
4. Catherine Breillat
Controversy has dogged French director Catherine Breillat since her first film, 1976's semi-autobiographical A Very Young Girl, was shelved for 25 years for its graphic depiction of a sexually precocious 15-year-old. In retrospect, it served as an excellent introduction of the typical Breillat heroine: a sexual adventurer who blurs the line between curiosity and masochism. Breillat's international breakthrough, 1999's Romance, featured the considerable assets of porn star Rocco Siffredi in real sex scenes that challenged critics and audiences to distinguish art from pornography. (Breillat would employ Siffredi's services again in 2004's Anatomy Of Hell, which included among many delights "menstrual tea" and the creative use of gardening tools in the bedroom.) Her most notorious and widely seen effort, 2001's Fat Girl, has as its centerpiece the excruciating deflowering of a virginal teen and ends with an act of violence intended to shock viewers to the core. Breillat has been yanking pin from post-feminist grenades for three decades now, and she seems to enjoy watching people scatter.
5. Vincent Gallo Vincent Gallo has directed just two features, but he's got a lifetime of braggadocio and ridiculousness to balance them on. If Buffalo 66 and The Brown Bunny weren't so damn good, he'd be just another blowhard NYC dabbler—he also paints and rocks—but it's tough to deny the power and artistry of each. (Yes, even the controversial Brown Bunny, with its graphic fellatio, is worth exploring closely.) Sure, his personal life can be pretty repugnant: His website offers his sperm for sale, but only to whites, and he also offers himself as an escort. (There's some latent anti-Semitism in there, too, just for good measure.) But it's all part of being a provocateur—until somebody comes up with the sperm money.
6. Jean-Luc Godard
The generous assortment of movies Jean-Luc Godard signed his name to in the '60s represent the greatest extended stretch of high-profile films made by an internationally famous director who was essentially just dicking around. From 1960's Breathless to 1967's Weekend, Godard enticed serious cineastes to watch as he gleefully—and occasionally maliciously—played with the conventions of filmmaking, trying to see if un-matched editing, off-beat camera angles, cut-up scores, purposefully pointless dialogue, and extended breaks for political essays could still be entertaining (or even enlightening). Godard has continued to experiment and tease over the past four decades, though of late he's more likely to garner press for his America-and-Hollywood-bashing interviews than for his movies, which barely get seen.
- Comments