The Big 20
by glakshmiratan | created - 10 Jan 2011 | updated - 03 Nov 2011 | PublicA list of the 20 biggest influences on acting, directing, theater, cinema. I will try to take a panoramic view, starting with the Dionysian festival, moving to the Elizabethan Age, to the operas of Wagner that Hitler carried with him, to the propaganda films of Goebbels, to the incomparable Ingmar Bergman, to Brando, to the modern masterpiece, Fight Club.
Few are more influential than Aristotle, and his Poetics was greatly adored by many, amongst them Goethe. But he will not feature in this list, as his contribution to acting, theater, and film is lesser than that of Aristophanes and the Tragedians. This list merely judges, objectively, the contributions of these men to the evolution of the theatrical conception, starting with Aeschylus, and ending with the those who bear the future, people like Denzel and Di Caprio.
I have left out acting coaches like Stella Adler, and studio bosses.
*Someone's lack of fame, say Bala, or Tarkovsky, does not undermine their contribution, just as Caspar David Friedrich's, Blake's or Nietzsche's, could not have been underestimated in their lives because of their commercial failure. I say this because to justify the inclusion of Bergman over Lucas and Spielberg.
1. William Shakespeare
Writer | The Tragedy of Macbeth
William Shakespeare's birthdate is assumed from his baptism on April 25. His father John was the son of a farmer who became a successful tradesman; his mother Mary Arden was gentry. He studied Latin works at Stratford Grammar School, leaving at about age 15. About this time his father suffered an ...
The dude!!!
2. Sophocles
Writer | Atlantis
Versatile Greek poet and tragic dramatist. He was the son of Sophilus, a wealthy arms manufacturer. Sophocles studied tragedy under Aeschylus, whom he subsequently defeated in the dramatic festival of 468 BC, thus gaining his first victory at these competitions. He became a general under Nicias and...
The most prolific, and the greatest of the Three Tragedians. Only 7 of his plays survive, but was enough for Freud, amongst others to acknowledge his lasting influence as unmatchable by any playwright other that William.
3. Ingmar Bergman
Writer | Smultronstället
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was born July 14, 1918, the son of a priest. The film and T.V. series, The Best Intentions (1992) is biographical and shows the early marriage of his parents. The film Sunday's Children (1992) depicts a bicycle journey with his father. In the miniseries Private Confessions (...
Woody Allen said, "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera." Todd Field said, "He was our tunnel man building the aqueducts of our cinematic collective unconscious." Krzysztof Kieślowski said,"This man is one of the few film directors—perhaps the only one in the world—to have said as much about human nature as Dostoevsky or Camus."
4. Konstantin Stanislavski
Konstantin Stanislavski was a wealthy Russian businessman turned director who founded the Moscow Art Theatre, and originated the Stanislavski's System of acting which was spread over the world by his students, such as Michael Chekhov, Aleksei Dikij, Stella Adler, Viktor Tourjansky, and Richard ...
Taught people to react, to be subservient to the script.
5. Charles Chaplin
Writer | The Great Dictator
Considered to be one of the most pivotal stars of the early days of Hollywood, Charlie Chaplin lived an interesting life both in his films and behind the camera. He is most recognized as an icon of the silent film era, often associated with his popular character, the Little Tramp; the man with the ...
created in all probability the most identifiable character
6. Lord Byron
Writer | Don Juan DeMarco
Lord Byron seemed destined from birth to tragedy. His father was the handsome but feckless Captain John "Mad Jack" Byron and his mother the Scottish heiress Catherine Gordon, the only child of the Laird of Gight.
Captain Byron abandoned his wife and child leaving Catherine to bring up young Byron on...
Was the 1st celebrity.
Created the Byronic hero that made so much money for Eastwood.
Was in some way responsible for Vampire, Orlok, Frankenstein.
7. Satan
Was a cat.
8. Richard Wagner
Soundtrack | Watchmen
Richard Wagner was a German composer best known for his operas, primarily the monumental four-opera cycle "Der Ring des Nibelungen". He was born Wilhelm Richard Wagner on May 22, 1813, in Leipzig, Germany. He was the ninth child in the family of Carl Wagner, a police clerk. Richard was only six ...
The most innovative musician who pushed the parameters of surrealism in his operas.
9. Homer
Writer | Troy
Homer is the name traditionally ascribed to the brilliant Greek bard that authored, most notably, the Iliad and the Odyssey (Western civilization's first complete stories). Nothing concrete is known of his life, but he is traditionally thought to be blind and was probably born in either Chios or ...
Everything goes back to him and Hesiod
10. Marlon Brando
Actor | Apocalypse Now
Marlon Brando is widely considered the greatest movie actor of all time, rivaled only by the more theatrically oriented Laurence Olivier in terms of esteem. Unlike Olivier, who preferred the stage to the screen, Brando concentrated his talents on movies after bidding the Broadway stage adieu in ...
1st modern actor
11. Akira Kurosawa
Writer | Kakushi-toride no san-akunin
After training as a painter (he storyboards his films as full-scale paintings), Kurosawa entered the film industry in 1936 as an assistant director, eventually making his directorial debut with Sanshiro Sugata (1943). Within a few years, Kurosawa had achieved sufficient stature to allow him greater...
12. Anton Chekhov
Writer | Kis Uykusu
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in 1860, the third of six children to a family of a grocer, in Taganrog, Russia, a southern seaport and resort on the Azov Sea. His father, a 3rd-rank Member of the Merchant's Guild, was a religious fanatic and a tyrant who used his children as slaves. Young Chekhov...
Was to Satinslavski's what Socrates was to Plato.
13. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Writer | The Double
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born on November 11, 1821, in Moscow, Russia. He was the second of seven children of Mikhail Andreevich and Maria Dostoevsky. His father, a doctor, was a member of the Russian nobility, owned serfs and had a considerable estate near Moscow where he lived with his ...
Angst- the psychological thriller- mystery- the torments of love- guilt- it's all him
Taxi Driver was his Notes from Underground
Match Point was his Crime and Punishment
The Machinist was Ivan K
Black Swan is The Double
...
14. Christ
Producer | The War of Godzilla
Christ is known for The War of Godzilla (2015), The War of Godzilla 2 (2017) and Stoners from Space (2012).
15. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Soundtrack | Amadeus
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart grew up in Salzburg under the regulation of his strict father Leopold who also was a famous composer of his time. His abilities in music were obvious even when Mozart was still young so that in 1762 at the age of six, his father took him with his elder sister on a concert ...
Is the basis for the soundtracks we hear in most dramas.
16. August Strindberg
Writer | The Stronger
He started to study at the Uppsala University but dropped out to pursue an economically unstable career as a journalist. In 1872 he published the first of his many masterpieces, 'Mäster Olof'. In 1874 he got a position at the Royal Library in Stockholm, which enabled him to marry 'Siri von Essen'. ...
Most important modern playwright
17. Aristophanes
Writer | Chi-Raq
Ancient Greek poet and comic dramatist Aristophanes was the son of Philippus of Athens. A leading exponent of the Athenian "Old Comedy," Aristophanes lived most of his life during the Peloponnesian War against Sparta (431-404). Some of his works include "Acharnians" (425), "Knights" (424), "In the ...
1st great comedian - He hated Socrates Plato hated him
18. Molière
Writer | Le bourgeois gentilhomme
Born between January 13 and January 15 of the year 1622, from a 25yo tapestry-maker, Jean Poguelin (who worked for the King of France from 1631), and a 20yo woman, Marie Cresé, in Paris, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin lost his mother when he was 10. From 1638 to 1640, he studied in the Jesuit college of ...
19. Luis Buñuel
Writer | Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie
The father of cinematic Surrealism and one of the most original directors in the history of the film medium, Luis Buñuel was given a strict Jesuit education (which sowed the seeds of his obsession with both religion and subversive behavior), and subsequently moved to Madrid to study at the ...
20. Sven Nykvist
Cinematographer | The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Sven Nykvist was considered by many in the industry to be one of the world's greatest cinematographers. During his long career that spanned almost half a century, Nyvist perfected the art of cinematography to its most simple attributes, and he helped give the films he had worked on the simplest and...
greatest cinematographer
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