The no-budget thriller that put Christopher Nolan on the road to "Batman," Ridley Scott's forgotten period drama and Steven Spielberg's humble beginnings with a monster truck: These first films launched stellar careers.
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KINO Favorites: 7 great directorial debuts
These low budget productions launched stellar careers: DW's KINO team picks its seven favorite director's first films.
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#7: Christopher Nolan's 'Following' (1998)
The director of "Batman" filmed his debut feature at the age of 28. "Following" tells the story of an unsuccessful author who gets drawn into the criminal underworld by a serial burglar. As he would in "Memento" later on, Nolan played with chronology in this black-and-white low-budget production. It won several awards.
Image: picture-alliance/Zeitgeist Films
#6: Fatih Akin's 'Short Sharp Shock' (1998)
The filmmaker from Hamburg was 25 when he directed his debut in 1998, "Short Sharp Shock." Inspired by his own life as the son of Turkish immigrants, Akin's film tells the story of a friendship between a Greek, a Serb and a Turk living in the Altona district of Hamburg. The film was one of the first to deal with Germany's multicultural realities.
Image: picture-alliance/United Archives
#5: Steven Spielberg's 'Duel' (1971)
Steven Spielberg was also 25 when his first TV movie, "Duel," aired in 1971. The filmmaker, who would later become one of the world's most commercially successful, worked with rather modest means on this first production. A highway, a car, a tanker truck and a handful of actors: Spielberg didn't need more to create an exciting thriller.
Image: picture-alliance/United Archives/IFTN
#4: Ridley Scott's 'The Duellists' (1977)
Ridley Scott was already a successful commercial director before he made his first feature film in 1977. Most people have forgotten the debut of the man behind "Alien" and "Blade Runner," but the impressive historical drama starring Harvey Keitel is well worth rediscovering.
Image: United Archives/picture-alliance
#3: Sofia Coppola's "The Virgin Suicides" (1999)
Sofia Coppola was born into film: Starting out as an actress in "The Godfather III," directed by her father Francis Ford Coppola, she surprised the world by directing her own feature film. The melancholic and dark drama "The Virgin Suicides" is a reflection on life and death. It launched the filmmaker's successful career.
Image: Imago/EntertainmentPictures
#2: Roman Polanski's 'Knife in the Water' (1962)
Like Spielberg, Roman Polanski limited the cast and locations of his first feature film. Shot in Poland, "Knife in the Water" is a terrific drama on rivalry and sexual tension, featuring two men competing for a woman's attentions on a small sailboat. The black-and-white work from 1962 remains a classic of cinema.
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#1: Terrence Malick's 'Badlands' (1973)
It's a variation on the Bonnie and Clyde story, set in a dead-end South Dakota town. Filmmaker Terrence Malick, who had previously studied philosophy and written his thesis on Heidegger and Wittgenstein, is renowned as the "poet of US cinema." His debut film from 1973 wasn't as intellectual as his more recent works, but it already featured his poetic signature and razor-sharp directing skills.
Image: picture-alliance/United Archive
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"Even Dwarfs Started Small," is how Werner Herzog put it in his ridiculously un-PC film from 1970 about a group of institutionalized little people who rebel against their keepers. The movie's message is simple: Revolution can come from the most unlikely places, and you're never too small to fight the system. It was Herzog's second film and, like his debut, "Signs of Life" in 1968, showed a director already fully-formed: Herzog would return to the similar themes — ambitious protagonists chasing impossible dreams, man's constant, and hopeless, battle with nature —throughout his career.
Even the biggest directors — Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Ridley Scott — started small. But, as with Herzog, their first films have a lot to say about their passions and preoccupations. Some, like "Following," Nolan's 1998 debut, give you the director in a nutshell: everything that was to come, from "Memento" to "The Dark Knight," can be glimpsed there in miniature.
With others — Scott's Napoleonic war drama "The Duellists" from 1977 or "Knife in the Water," Roman Polanski's 1962 bow and still the only film he every shot in his native Poland — a debut can suggest a road not taken. You can imagine a whole separate canon, an alternative career, had the director continued on the path begun with that first feature.
But in every case, debut films are revealing. Whatever the budget or subject —Spielberg's "Duel," a road rage thriller original shot for TV was made for under half a million dollars; Nolan's "Following" for just $6,000 — where a director came from tells you a lot about where they ended up.
Watching Sofia Coppola's first film, "The Virgin Suicides" (1999), you know this is a director destined for greatness. "Short Sharp Shock," the 1998 feature debut of German filmmaker Fatih Akin, has a few rough edges but his rock 'n' roll style and his ability to draw furious and fearless performances from his actors, is on full display.
For the latest edition of KINO Favorites we picked our seven top debuts: the mostly-forgotten beginnings of some of the world's greatest directors. Check it out and give us your review: Did your fave filmmaker make the cut? What first-time efforts would be on your list? Let us know: Kino@dw.com
