I like lists, and I like studying the passage of time, so I was intrigued when Patrick Goldstein ran the following list of directors to support his thesis that few directors are capable of making “big hit movies” after their 62nd birthday. (He raises this question partly because Steven Spielberg turns 62 in December.)
The first list here was compiled by Goldstein and notes which movies the directors in question made before they turned 62 and which movies they made after they turned 62:
- Francis Ford Coppola
0-62: The Godfather, Apocalypse Now
63+: Youth Without Youth - Howard Hawks
0-62: Bringing Up Baby, The Big Sleep, Red River
63+: Hatari!, Red Line 7000, El Dorado - George Roy Hill
0-62: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting
63+: The Little Drummer Girl, Funny Farm - Alfred Hitchcock
0-62: The Lady Vanishes, Notorious, North by Northwest
63+: The Birds, Torn Curtain, Topaz - Elia Kazan
0-62: A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, East of Eden
63+: The Visitors, The Last Tycoon - David Lean
0-62: Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago
63+: Ryan’s Daughter, A Passage to India - Mike Nichols
0-62: The Graduate, Heartburn
63+: Closer, Charlie Wilson’s War - Sydney Pollack
0-62: The Way We Were, Tootsie
63+: Random Hearts - George Stevens
0-62: Woman of the Year, Giant
63+: The Only Game in Town - Billy Wilder
0-62: Sunset Blvd., Some Like It Hot
63+: Avanti, The Front Page, Fedora
Here are some other examples that occur to me — only some of which, I think, support Goldstein’s thesis:
- William Wyler
0-62: The Best Years of Our Lives, Ben-Hur
63+: How to Steal a Million, Funny Girl - Stanley Kubrick
0-62: Paths of Glory, Full Metal Jacket
63+: Eyes Wide Shut - Robert Wise
0-62: The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Sound of Music
63+: Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Rooftops - Cecil B. DeMille
0-62: The Sign of the Cross, North West Mounted Police
63+: The Greatest Show on Earth, The Ten Commandments - Martin Scorsese
0-62: Raging Bull, Goodfellas, The Aviator
63+: The Departed - George Cukor
0-62: Little Women, Adam’s Rib, Let’s Make Love
63+: My Fair Lady, Rich and Famous - Ridley Scott
0-62: Alien, Blade Runner, G.I. Jane
63+ Hannibal, Kingdom of Heaven, American Gangster - William Friedkin
0-62: The Exorcist, Cruising, Jade
63+: The Hunted, Bug - John Ford
0-62: Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath, The Searchers
63+: The Last Hurrah, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance - Fred Zinnemann
0-62: High Noon, Oklahoma!, A Man for All Seasons
63+: The Day of the Jackal, Julia - Miloš Forman
0-62: One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus, Valmont
63+: The People vs. Larry Flynt, Man on the Moon - Woody Allen
0-62: The Purple Rose of Cairo, Deconstructing Harry
63+: Small Time Crooks, Match Point, Scoop - Michael Curtiz
0-62: Captain Blood, Casablanca, Mildred Pierce
63+: White Christmas, King Creole - Roman Polanski
0-62: Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, Bitter Moon
63+: The Ninth Gate, The Pianist, Oliver Twist - John Schlesinger
0-62: Midnight Cowboy, Marathon Man, Madame Sousatzka
63+: Cold Comfort Farm, The Next Best Thing - Robert Benton
0-62: Kramer Vs. Kramer, Places in the Heart, Nobody’s Fool
63+: Twilight, The Human Stain, Feast of Love - Robert Altman
0-62: M*A*S*H, Nashville, Popeye
63+: Vincent and Theo, The Player, Gosford Park - Stephen Frears
0-62: Dangerous Liaisons, Dirty Pretty Things
63+: Mrs Henderson Presents, The Queen
And so on, and so on, and so on.
Yeah, I think Goldstein’s thesis doesn’t quite hold up; there are too many examples that falsify it. You pretty much have to do a fair bit of cherry-picking to make it stick, I think.
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