What is a great director? Is it Stanley Kubrick using the language of film in a way that makes his movies a delight to understand but not-so-great at the box office? Perhaps it’s the anti-Kubrick, Michael Bay, who makes movies that seem motion captured from kids playing with toys but make a billion dollars? Or maybe Spielberg who exists as both a critical and commercial mastermind? The work required to direct a film is not easy, so anyone who completes even one film is a great director in my book. So, on this day of his birth, we look at the films of Zack Snyder, a great director in his own right. What makes him great? The fact that most people reading this either love him or hate him, for starters.
One of our great critics here at MFR, EJ Moreno, sums up Zack Snyder in a way that I completely agree with. Zack Snyder is Michael Bay after a stint at art school. It’s true, Snyder presents all the stunning, visceral visuals of a Bay movie with the slick design and composition of a graphic designer. Even the biggest haters of Snyder’s work have to admit that the man’s movies are beautiful.
2. Dawn Of The Dead
Zack Snyder made his debut with a remake of Dawn of the Dead, the original sequel to George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. The feeling of pure, visceral filmmaking was rampant in every frame of Snyder’s film. Snyder refined the original pic’s story and hit the ground running with a wild opening ten minutes that made the price of a ticket worth it. I will say it plain and clear: after watching Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead I was crushing hard on the director. I wanted to see what came next. Would he evolve his storytelling to a level closer to his absolute mastery of movement, action, and pacing?
