Amazing debut, diminishing career: 5 filmmakers who should be bigger than they are

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Back in 1993, filmmakers Scott McGehee & David Siegel debuted with a gorgeous mind-bending mystery called Suture. It was by no means perfect, but it was audacious, interesting, and beautiful to look at. It should have lead to offers galore, steak dinners, the love of immortal women who don’t need any sort of device in order to float, if you know what I mean. But McGehee and Siegel spent the next seven years trying to make another movie. When they finally did, it was The Deep End, another flawed but interesting movie (thanks in no small part to Tilda Swinton). They followed that with, you guessed it, the flawed but interesting Bee Season, which featured the odd pairing of Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche. I’ll watch Juliette Binoche in anything, as long as it doesn’t also star Richard Gere. Both films were disappointments in the all-important B.O. department, and I’m not talking body odor. But with their new movie Uncertainty, only their fourth in seventeen years, generating that big big buzz, this dynamic duo may finally get some of the recognition they deserve.

Cover of One False Move

You wouldn’t know it, but One False Move was director Carl Franklin’s fourth feature film, not his first. He’d been toiling in B-flick obscurity for half a dozen years (often working with fellow filmmaker Todd Field who, back then, was just another actor) when he got ahold of Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson’s  fantastic neo-noir script. The result was an insta-classic of the form, and Franklin followed it up with Devil in a Blue Dress, an excellent film based on Walter Mosley’s novel, which Franklin adapted himself (the last screenplay he would write). Despite good intentions (of the particularly Hollywood kind), and a good, if uneven cast (Meryl Streep! William Hurt! Renee Zellweger?), Franklin’s next film, One True Thing, was a big fat disappointment. A couple turns at the troft of packaged studio fare did nothing to help the downturn. The heels of his boots found no purchase in the soft soil of the Hollywood hills. Down, down, down. If you want to see something Franklin has directed lately, call your local cable company. I’m glad he’s working, but it’s a shame.

Cover of The Last Seduction

John Dahl was another promising filmmaker who cut his young teeth on neo-noir, made a couple classics of the form, and then struggled for years before getting sucked, a la Videodrome, into your TV. 1989’s Kill Me Again was an impressive debut, and his next film, 1993’s Red Rock West, was a killer follow-up, but it was actually Dahl’s third film, The Last Seduction, another insta-classic, that brought the big attention to the Dahl brothers (he wrote Red Rock with brother Rick). So what happened? Rick was involved in cursory capacities with a couple of his brother’s next films, and has a few films, most notably a remake of Hitchcock’s Blackmail, in development, but the two haven’t written anything together since Red Rock. John followed Seduction with Unforgettable which, despite its title, was not. Rounders came in 1998, starring not-yet-industry-titans Matt Damon and Ed Norton, and actually nabbed a Venice Film Festival nomination. But no win, and few eyeballs. The little seen J.J. Abrams-scripted Joyride followed, and that was basically that for Dahl’s feature film career (with the exception of You Kill Me, another take on the assassin-in-training genre that dropped, or should I say drooped, in 2007. Despite a capped Sir Ben Kingsly in the lead, it’s global take was just under $4 million, barely enough for the bullets). At least Dahl seems to have his pick of the TV litter; he’s directed episodes of True Blood, Californication, and Dexter. Not too bad. And we may be seeing Dahl’s name above our cinemas again soon. Rounders 2 is in development.

Cover of Morvern Callar

Back in 1999 Lynne Ramsay was getting the kind of buzz that fellow Brit Andrea Arnold is enjoying now (for her upcoming film, Fish Tank). Like Arnold, Ramsay had made a series of impressive short films, the last of which had just won the Jury Prize at Cannes, her second Jury Prize in fact, though Arnold did her one better when her short, Wasp, nabbed an Academy Award. Ramsey’s debut feature, Ratcatcher, was a gritty and exceptionally well-made film. This was a new filmmaker with an obvious artistic vision, the sort that comes along rarely. And with all due respect to Arnold, whose films I’ve liked a lot, Ramsay uses more of the tools in her filmmaker’s box. Chances are it’s a matter of taste; I’m a sucker for a beautiful movie. Ramsay followed her first success with the gorgeous, odd and ultimately unsatisfying Morvern Callar. If nothing else it featured great work from Samantha Morton. I might be a dumb American, but I don’t think titling her film after her awkwardly-named main character was a good move. Saying it, you feel like someone just shoved a handful of mashed potatoes into your mouth, and nobody wants that. Except mashed potato fetishists, and you know who you are. With the exception of a short she contributed to the Cinema 16 project, Ramsay has taken eight years to make another film, We Need to Talk About Kevin, filming this year. Based on the book, it will be the latest in a short line of cinematic explorations of a Columbine-like slaughter. On the one hand, the fabulous Tilda Swinton’s on board. On the other, does anyone want to sit through another movie about a high school rampage? With Elephant, Afterschool, and episodes of shows like ER, Buffy, and Degrassi, we’ve sort of explored this topic to death, no pun intended. It seems like Ramsay’s been struggling for material since Ratcatcher, and I fear that she’s latched on to a project she should have ignored.

Cover of Signs & Wonders

With his Sundance-winning debut feature, Sunday, Jonathan Nossiter became another overnight indie darling and, soon after, one of the earliest to earn “Curse of Sundance” status. Released very briefly in 1997, Sunday was a flawed but in many ways startling debut. But Nossiter, a former sommelier, wasn’t interested in making just any movie, and he followed Sunday with documentaries, both short and long. In 2000, he returned to fiction with another indie, Signs and Wonders, which topped out at a $34 million take. Not bad for a small picture. His 2004 wine documentary, Modovino, was nominated for a Cannes Golden Palm and one of France’s César awards (how to win big in France? Make a movie about wine!). It took six years for Nossiter to make another film, and chances are the one he’s made, Rio Sex Comedy, due in March and starring Matt Dillion, Bill Pullman, Iréne Jacob and Nossiter fave Charlotte Rampling, will suffer the same fate as every other film the man has made. The question is, with a cellar crammed full of great vino, does he even care?