8. Kenneth Lonergan
Key Films: You Can Count on Me, Margaret For screenwriter, Kenneth Lonergan, his world was the stage. He was known for directing and writing successful plays all around the New York area. Then he began to be contacted to write films such as Analyze This and Gangs of New York. But, it is the heart that he brings to his films that is the most astonishing. Although he has only made two films that came out in a span of ten years from each other, he has already cemented himself as a director that I would go anywhere to watch his films. His first film, You Can Count on Me, was produced by Martin Scorsese. He got the stamp of approval from one of the greatest directors of all time and for good reason. Lonergan is first and foremost a writer and his screenplay for You Can Count on Me has the audacity of making what could be a Lifetime melodrama into an intelligent look at relationships, particularly between two siblings. He never plays to expectations and in turn makes a beautiful humanistic film that can even be known as the film that introduced to American audiences Mark Ruffalo. But, his magnum opus came with his sophomore effort, Margaret. Much has been said about the disastrous production and post-production of the film in which Lonergan, an auteur, refused to let the studios cut down his film thus through a series of legal battles the film was finally release about five years after production. It was through the film critics that the film was able to see the light of day as they applauded its depiction of a teenager. The films moodiness is perhaps the best depiction of the volatile mind of a teenage I have ever seen. It is ambitious and haunting, and I only saw the studio cut. Imagine the brilliance of the directors cut. Lonergan is still a director on the rise in the way David Mamet was in the 1980s and hopefully his films will become widely seen.