Top 5 Director-Actor Collaborations

With the DVD release of "Sweeney Todd" this week I started to think of great Director-Actor teams throughout the history of cinema. Certainly the films of Tim Burton-Johnny Depp, now six in all, deserve consideration. Inventive visually and fantastic in nature, they may lack the "weight" associated with the film collaborations Nixed Picks as his Top 5 of all time. There's also only one film in their six together Nixed considers a classic, 1994's "Ed Wood". Honorable mention also goes to Bob Rafelson- Jack Nicholson for their five films together as director and star. That union produced an all-time classic in 1970's "Five Easy Pieces" and one near-classic, 1972's "King of the Marvin Gardens". At # 5 Nixed has the combo of Alfred Hitchcock-James Stewart. From 1948's "Rope" to 1958's "Vertigo" they made four films together. They paired on one of Hitchcock's masterpieces, "Rear Window", in 1954. Stewart was the perfect everyman for Hitch. An Average Joe involved with nefarious circumstances and platinum blondes. At # 4 is the team of John Ford-John Wayne. They elevated the Western to new heights through their nine films in the genre. They worked together at least 14 times as director and star on major films, with Wayne featured in cameos and walk-ons in several others before hitting it big in 1939's "Stagecoach". Interestingly it was Ford, not Wayne, who enlisted in the military during WW2, and was considered an enormous Patriot. 1956 saw the release of "The Searchers", one of the best Westerns ever made. At # 3 stands Akira Kurosawa-Toshiro Mifune. Where John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock garnered accolades and awards away from their alter egos, it would seem impossible for one of these artists to exist without the other. The fact that they worked together sixteen times supports this observation. From 1948-1965 the two re-invented Japanese cinema with ground-breaking films including "Roshomon" and "Seven Samurai". These films' themes and approaches have been copied in countless American films. Ingmar Bergman-Max von Sydow are my # 2 pick.Max von Sydow imbodied the angst-ridden guilty soul of Bergman's riffs on Man's desires, and the related consequences.They worked together eleven times. Most notable in their canon are "The Virgin Spring" and "The Seventh Seal". Nixed also considered Bergman and Liv Ullmann for this spot for their ten films together. The Bergman films of the late 50's and early 60's though were less contemplative.They also seemed more important and less self-important than the Ullmann films in the late 60's and beyond. The number one collaboration between director and actor? Easy. Martin Scorsese-Robert DeNiro. Through eight films spanning 1973-1995, this is the perfect marriage of director and actor. The best of the bunch was 1976's "Taxi Driver", followed closely by "Raging Bull", and "Goodfellas". All three belong an anyone's list of top 100 films, maybe top 25. "The King of Comedy", "Cape Fear", and "Casino" are second rung Scorsese with many moments of brilliance sprinkled in. Nixed needs to see "Mean Streets" and "New York, New York" again before proclaiming either a classic or a flop.