Living or dead. I posted this a few days ago, but with Actors (instead of directors). So this would be a SECOND party.
These aren’t necessarily a reflection of my favorite directors, but people I’d like to have a conversation with, but also five people who mesh together well - chemistry. I will pick those who speak English enough to have an intellectual (and other) conversations.
I will provide snacks, and soft drinks, juice - I don’t want a drunken mess. I want sincere, great conversations. Hopefully a lot of laughter. Maybe I’ll allow pot, since Altman token all day.
Since 10 might be too much for one intimate gathering, feel free to name 2 sets.
Definitely Speilberg–we both collect meteorites, so we could talk about that. Kurosawa so that we could talk about swords and Edo Japan. Kevin Smith so that we can nerd out. And Natalie Portman and Sofia Coppola because they are Natalie Portman and Sofia Coppola.
My first thought is to start off with Jon Favreau, if only because I enjoyed his TV show that was similar to the OP’s premise: Dinner for Five. For exactly the same reason I’d invite Kevin Smith; one of my favorite Dinner for Five episodes was the one with Kevin Smith, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, and I think the fifth was Jason Lee. I particularly enjoyed Smith busting Favreau’s balls for Made, which was exactly the kind of “let’s have fun with my friends” type movie project that Favreau had previously criticized Smith for making. (I liked Made.)
Starting with Favreau and Smith, the full list would probably look like:
Jon Favreau
Kevin Smith
Edgar Wright
Judd Apatow
Todd Philips
Yeah, I think this would be a fun dinner. If I were going for more dramatic directors, as opposed to comedy, the first name I’d put on the list would be Sarah Polley.
I’d love to have Leni Riefenstahl myself, but I have a strict house rule about not inviting Nazis over.
I have tremendous respect for her as a filmmaker (and actress…I love all those Weimar Period “mountain movies,” the German equivalent of the American Western), but you can’t get around the Nazi thing.
Not that she personally machine-gunned concentration camp prisoners, but the did make the Third Reich look godlike in Triumph of the Will and Olympiad.