5) Ed Wood/Be Kind Rewind
Two movies come to mind when thinking about directors expressing their unfettered joy at being able to make movies for a living, coming from filmmakers of two very different times and places. One of the first that emerges for me is Tim Burton’s 1994 film Ed Wood, a biopic of the late great director of some of what are considered to be the absolute worst movies ever made, the most famous of which is Plan 9 from Outer Space. Unlike such auteurs as Tommy Wiseau, who hasn’t made a movie since his disastrous The Room, Ed Wood made a number of films, and in the movie we see that his primary concern was with the sheer enjoyment he got from creating these movies—to him, they were all as precious as Citizen Kane. Johnny Depp in the lead role captures this weird vivacity and complexity of the real life figure.
When it comes to no-budget effects-driven filmmaking, Michel Gondry is a master. The style employed in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind gave that film a unique look and feel that made it one of the most treasured movies of the 21st century. His 2008 film Be Kind Rewind may not have been of the same quality, but through its portrayal of friends and community members coming together to make these creative visions come to life on screens, it offers one of the sweetest (or swedest) examples of the joy of collaborative filmmaking.
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