KINO Favorites: 7 great directorial debuts
These low budget productions launched stellar careers: DW's KINO team picks its seven favorite director's first films.
#7: Christopher Nolan's 'Following' (1998)
The director of "Batman" filmed his debut feature at the age of 28. "Following" tells the story of an unsuccessful author who gets drawn into the criminal underworld by a serial burglar. As he would in "Memento" later on, Nolan played with chronology in this black-and-white low-budget production. It won several awards.
#6: Fatih Akin's 'Short Sharp Shock' (1998)
The filmmaker from Hamburg was 25 when he directed his debut in 1998, "Short Sharp Shock." Inspired by his own life as the son of Turkish immigrants, Akin's film tells the story of a friendship between a Greek, a Serb and a Turk living in the Altona district of Hamburg. The film was one of the first to deal with Germany's multicultural realities.
#5: Steven Spielberg's 'Duel' (1971)
Steven Spielberg was also 25 when his first TV movie, "Duel," aired in 1971. The filmmaker, who would later become one of the world's most commercially successful, worked with rather modest means on this first production. A highway, a car, a tanker truck and a handful of actors: Spielberg didn't need more to create an exciting thriller.
#4: Ridley Scott's 'The Duellists' (1977)
Ridley Scott was already a successful commercial director before he made his first feature film in 1977. Most people have forgotten the debut of the man behind "Alien" and "Blade Runner," but the impressive historical drama starring Harvey Keitel is well worth rediscovering.
#3: Sofia Coppola's "The Virgin Suicides" (1999)
Sofia Coppola was born into film: Starting out as an actress in "The Godfather III," directed by her father Francis Ford Coppola, she surprised the world by directing her own feature film. The melancholic and dark drama "The Virgin Suicides" is a reflection on life and death. It launched the filmmaker's successful career.
#2: Roman Polanski's 'Knife in the Water' (1962)
Like Spielberg, Roman Polanski limited the cast and locations of his first feature film. Shot in Poland, "Knife in the Water" is a terrific drama on rivalry and sexual tension, featuring two men competing for a woman's attentions on a small sailboat. The black-and-white work from 1962 remains a classic of cinema.
#1: Terrence Malick's 'Badlands' (1973)
It's a variation on the Bonnie and Clyde story, set in a dead-end South Dakota town. Filmmaker Terrence Malick, who had previously studied philosophy and written his thesis on Heidegger and Wittgenstein, is renowned as the "poet of US cinema." His debut film from 1973 wasn't as intellectual as his more recent works, but it already featured his poetic signature and razor-sharp directing skills.