Who is your favorite director? Please limit your answer to just one director. Mentions of runners-up are fine, of course, but choose one as your favorite.
I mentioned Out of the Past in carnivorousplant’s What is your favorite movie of all time? thread, but that choice only barely edged out Faust and Sunrise, both directed by F.W. Murnau.
Murnau was a product of Universum Film AG (UFA), whose list of famous early directors also included Fritz Lang. Murnau’s films made heavy use of chiaroscuro and stylized, uneven sets popular at the time with German Expressionism. His Faust is my favorite filmed adaptation of the tale, and Emil Jannings’ portrayal of Mephisto the most satisfyingly sinister I’ve seen. (This despite Jannings’ own Faustian bargain with the Nazis a decade later.)
Sunrise, Faust, The Last Laugh, all these Murnau films (and more besides) are the ones I go back to again and again. And while I love Noir as a genre more than even these silent German Expressionism films, there is no one director responsible for more of my favorites than Murnau.
