The Most Fearless Filmmakers On The Planet...

By Oliver Lunn

Filmmakers can be feted as 'fearless' for many reasons. Whether it's taking political risks to get their films out there (Iran's Jafar Panahi), battling the powers that be to maintain artistic vision (Francis Ford Coppola) or enduring the horrors of warfare and risking their lives in the process (Tim Hetherington in Which Way Is the Front Line From Here?) – these directors don't really give A S**t about conventions, expectations or raking in heaps of cash.

With the earth-shatteringly bold and brilliant 12 Years a Slave released in UK cinemas [last year], we're wondering if there are any other directors out there as gutsy as Steve McQueen, creating audacious, uncompromising, and often wildly imaginative work. First thoughts? These guys...

WERNER HERZOG – THE BULLET-DODGING MAVERICK OF BALLSY CINEMA. 


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The death-defying German famously stole a camera to make his first few films – not that we condone theft, but in this case, it seems justified. More notably, the DIRECTOR poured blood, SWEAT and everything imaginable into 1982's Fitzcarraldo, in which he dragged a 300-plus ton steamship over a mountain. Feats of filmmaking don't come much bigger than that.



JAFAR PANAHI – BANNED FROM MAKING FILMS FOR 20 YEARS, MADE ONE ANYWAY. 


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Not only did Panahi refuse to succumb to the 20-year ban from making movies, that the Iranian authorities cruelly imposed on him, he smuggled his last movie, This Is Not A Film, out of Iran via USB STICK in a tasty-looking cake. Censorship becomes art. Can anyone really top that in the fearless stakes?



LARS VON TRIER – BANNED FROM CANNES, KEEPING IT REAL. 


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Fearlessly provocative? Whatever you think about Lars, whether you think he's a pretentious douchebag or an arthouse don, he's doing things his own way and he ain't scared of no one. In fact, he welcomes beef and controversy. After Cannes declared him Persona non grata for a few regrettable slips of the tongue, Von Trier probably felt as though he went home with the Palme d'Or in his pocket. You gotta admire the guy's bring-it-on attitude.



HAIFAA AL-MANSOUR – BEING A FEMALE FILMMAKER IN SAUDI ARABIA IS NOT AN EASY THING. 


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Astonishingly, as the first Saudi Arabian female film director, Haifaa Al-Mansour and her charming coming-of-age drama (which also happens to be the first EVER Saudi Arabian film) has overcome a plethora of obstacles. Given that being a woman in Saudi Arabia is hardly conducive to making a film, the director spent much of her time hiding in a van, directing people via a walkie-talkie. She faced criticism in every town she filmed in from narrow-minded types who feared she was shining an unwelcome light on their society. Haifaa Al-Mansour is a different kind of fearless. (Read our interview with her here.)



DAVID CRONENBERG – CONFRONTING US WITH OUR MOST DISTURBING NIGHTMARES. 


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Cronenberg? Fearless? Yes. In the sense that he, like Steve McQueen, made us confront images that had hitherto been seen. In The Brood (1979), he presents us with images that truly externalise our demons in a way that's clearly intended as cathartic for both us and the director. The most freaky? That'll be the woman with the weird foetus thing popping out of her belly. That and the scene inVideodrome where James Woods' character inserts a VHS into his stomach. Mmmm, nice.



TIM HETHERINGTON – DOCUMENTING THE BLOODY, REAL-LIFE HORROS OF THE FRONT LINE. 


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The late Tim Hetherington heroically devoted his life to documenting life on the front line in war-torn countries (2010's Restrepo), as chronicled in last year's Which Way Is the Front Line From Here? Hetherington was the epitome of fearless as he braved the bloody, bullet-swept landscapes of the Middle East while showing the HUMANITY and vulnerability of the men 'serving their country'.



FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA – DEFYING ALL THE ODDS TO COMPLETE AND RELEASE APOCALYPSE NOW.  


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Facing typhoons, nasty press coverage, BANKRUPTCY and an unforeseeable heart attack from lead actor Martin Sheen, it's a wonder Coppola's film made its way into theatres. The awe-inspiring achievement has cemented its director as one of the most audacious filmmakers on the planet. Although it's unlikely he'll wheel out a film as muscular as Apocalypse Now again. Can't blame the guy.



ERICH VON STROHEIM – FIGHTING THOSE PESKY MGM EXECS AND DEATH VALLEY'S HARSH HEAT. 


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Erich von Stroheim is probably best-known for his on-screen appearances in Sunset Boulevard and La Grande Illusion. But it was his ambitious directorial film, 1924's Greed, a film that was originally 462 minutes long and made with Kubrickian obsession, that marks him out as one of the big boys. Unsurprisingly, the MGM execs who saw the original film decided it needed to be re-edited – or rather, as Stroheim no doubt thought, butchered (those pesky execs!). On top of length issues the seemingly tyrannical director dragged his cast and crew out to Death Valley for a two-month shoot during midsummer and, as a result, 14 crew members became ill. All in the name of filmmaking, eh.



ABDELLATIF KECHICHE – DIRECTORIAL TYRANT OR UNCOMPROMISING ARTIST? ...OR BOTH?


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Both fearless and tyrannical (if we're to believe the controversy surrounding certain scenes in his much-lauded Blue Is the Warmest Colour), French auteur Kechiche was known as a fearless visionary before his Palme d'Or-winner made everyone's jaws dangle. Just watch Black Venus, an emotionally draining, super-intense film based on a real-life story about a Khoikhoi woman who was exhibited and exploited as a circus attraction in 19th century Europe. So, has Kechiche stolen the European crown of controversy from Lars von Trier?



STEVE MCQUEEN – BATTLING TABOOS IN BRUTAL FASHION. 


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'Fearless' is an almost unavoidable adjective when discussing McQueen's work. Having confronted sex addiction in Shame, and the infamous real-life death of Bobby Sands during a hunger strike in a Northern Irish prison, in Hunger, the director is telling tough stories in illuminating and necessarily intense ways. His latest, 12 Years a Slave, features some of his most daring, harrowing images yet. Why? Simply because, in his own words, "I needed to see them".

http://grolschfilmworks.com/ca/features/the-most-fearless-filmmakers-on-the-planet