Anyone who knows classic Hollywood knows that there have been many occasions where the name under the “directed by” credit isn’t the actual person who directed the picture. One of those happens to be on tonight, Journey Into Fear, nominally directed by Norman Foster, but mapped out in its entirety by Orson Welles. Other famous cases include Christian Nyby who helmed The Thing from Another World and eerily duplicated all the trademark touches of director Howard Hawks (wink, wink). Tobe Hooper, who had his former directorial style disappear into an almost exact duplicate of Steven Spielberg’s directorial style with Poltergeist (nudge, nudge) and of course, almost everyone with a directing contract in Hollywood at the time who took a turn behind the camera and emulated David O’Selznick’s style, even though he wasn’t a director, with Gone with the Wind (say no more, say no more). Which brings up the question, what does a director do anyway and at what point can we declare who the director is?
In This is Orson Welles, the lifelong on again, off again interview with Welles conducted by Peter Bogdanovich, Welles hems and haws on the subject of the direction of Journey Into Fear. He says outright that he, Welles, directed it in the sense that he mapped out the shots and edits before heading off to South America and his ill-fated It’s All True assignment with RKO. But sensing a lack of generosity in saying so, hedges his bets by admitting that it was, indeed, Norman Foster (who worked with Welles at the Mercury Theater), who was there every day, dealing with the cast and crew, deciding when to yell “action,” when to yell “cut,” and figuring out which take to go with. And, honestly, that probably does mean, according to the definition of directing for most people, that he was, in fact, the director.
So is that all the director is? Just a manager who says “stop” and “go” to everyone? Partly, yes. But, of course, the director is also someone who crafts the look of a movie. Even casual movie fans often notice that certain directors have a certain look to their movies. Welles, for instance, had three different cinematographers for Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, and Journey Into Fear and yet all three have remarkably similar visual styles. In keeping with that thought, Gregg Tolland, Stanley Cortez, and Karl Struss, the three respective cinematographers of Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, and Journey Into Fear, don’t have a whole hell of a lot of other movies that look anything like those three, sending up a pretty big red flag that Welles was the guy crafted the look of each film.
Or take Steven Spielberg. How many different cinematographers has he worked with? Dozens. How many of his film look jarringly different from the other, as far as visual style goes? Not many. Spielberg has honed a look, a style, a visual language over the years and that’s just as important as his managerial tasks on the set. But those managerial tasks are not to be underestimated. That’s also what makes a good director, working well with the cast and crew, and having a sense of what can be accomplished, what can’t, and how long all of it will take. Spielberg has honed that skill pretty well, too, and studios know when they back a movie directed by him, there won’t be any heartbreak over spiraling budgets and unhappy actors (well, not after 1941, anyway).
Some directors take years on a movie and go way over budget and others get done quickly and come in under budget each time. And neither one of those, by the way, is necessarily better than the other. James Cameron, for instance, is known for taking years and spending tons of money getting a movie done. From Aliens to The Abyss, and Titanic to Avatar, his movies come in way over budget and way over schedule. They also make more money than most small countries do in a year. The fact is, they’re complicated endeavors. I don’t think Cameron has much of a visual style and his work with actors and dialogues leaves a lot – a lot – to be desired. But when it comes to the managerial aspect of directing, he is apparently one of the best, able to juggle a thousand different organizational tasks during the shoot.
In the case of Gone With The Wind, several directors tried their hand at it, the biggest involvement being that of George Cukor, Sam Wood, and Victor Fleming, who got the sole credit, but each had to understand that, in the end, it was David O’Selznick calling the shots, sometimes literally, as his endless memos, available for perusal, indicate. Still, they were all there, on the set, working with the cast and crew and adding their creative input as well. The movie feels a bit disjointed visually and perhaps that couldn’t be avoided with so many chefs in the kitchen but, overall, it holds up pretty well.
So did Christian Nyby direct The Thing from Another World? Did Tobe Hooper direct Poltergeist? Did Norman Foster direct Journey Into Fear? If they were on the set, handling the cast and crew, time managing the day, and deciding which take to go with, yes, they did. At the very least, they performed one essential duty of directing, the on-set day to day management of the production. Maybe they weren’t the creative side of things, but, to a degree, they were all directors nonetheless. That name on the credits may not bear sole responsibility, or deserve sole credit, but it’s a good place to start to point you in the right direction.