UPDATED: An incredible year for filmmakers over 80. So much so that I’ve edited the list below with three new entries —Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Victor Erice’s “Close Your Eyes,” and Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron.”
EARLIER: For a few years now, Quentin Tarantino has been insisting that he plans to quit making movies after his 10th feature. He’s just 60 years old.
This whole notion of retiring after 10 movies comes from Tarantino’s theory that a director’s quality of work could only get worse as he ages. Tarantino wants his filmography to be perfect or, as he puts it, “without a misfire.”
“I guess I do feel that directing is a young man’s game. I do feel that cinema is changing, and I’m a little bit part of the old guard.”
The problem is that it’s a flawed theory. Forget the fact that some filmmakers have released their best films in their 60s. Altman directed “Gosford Park” at 76. Kurosawa directed “Ran” at 75. Scorsese gave us “The Wolf of Wall Street” at 72. Hitchcock released “Frenzy” at 74. Varda was 79 when “Faces Places” premiered at Cannes. Buñuel turned 77 when “The Obscure Object of Desire” shocked audiences.
Hell, Jerzy Skolimowski won the Grand Prix at Cannes last year for his donkey tale “EO.” The Polish writer-director was 84 at the time. Many zeroed in on Skolimowski’s age in their reviews; I don’t know how many times I had to read that “EO” felt like the work of a young filmmaker.
In terms of that age range, might I direct Mr. Tarantino to my old IndieWire writeup of the 12 Best Films By Directors Over 80. Some of the most legendary directors, during the twilight of their lives, released superb films.
Case in point —
Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese, 81)
The Dead (John Huston, 81)
Prairie Home Companion (Robert Altman, 81)
Benedetta (Paul Verhoeven, 82)
L’Argent (Robert Bresson, 82)
The Boy and the Heron (Hayao Miyazaki, 82)
Before the Devil Knows (Sidney Lumet, 83)
Close Your Eyes (Victor Erice, 83)
Madadayo (Akira Kurosawa, 83)
Goodbye to Language (Jean-Luc Godard, 84)
Saraband (Ingmar Bergman, 85)
Wild Grass (Alain Resnais, 86)
An Officer and a Spy (Roman Polanski, 86)
The Mule (Clint Eastwood, 89)
I’m Going Home (Manoel de Oliviera, 93)
That list might be growing soon. We’ve been seeing a lot of old masters, 80 years and over, directing new films in 2023. They include the likes of Clint Eastwood, Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Hayao Miyazaki, David Cronenberg, William Friedkin, Ridley Scott, Francis Ford Coppola and Frederick Wiseman.