Those are five very good options how can you go wrong? But I'm still going to have to go with Chris Cunningham.Thus, I cannot choose any one of these fine directors. If you had put Michel Gondry up there among a bunch of other prominant directors and Chris cunningham wasn't there, I would've have voted for Michel Gondry because he's clearly better then 99% of the directors out there.

         

Who's Michel Gondry?

         

UMMMMM, Well Gondry is such an amazing director, but having seen your director-file website, why dont you start putting up stuff by Spike Jonze, or Roman Coppola. In my opinion, those two are the best.

         

Given his latest bunch of clips, I would think his average has dropped considerably - sure hope his movie makes up for it!

         

Russell Mulcahy's video for The Tubes' "White Punks On Dope" is still a classic - sorry I can't provide a link to it (and I'm not sure how to upload my copy, nor how legal this would be).

         

Michel Gondry is a great director. But he doesn't go deep. His Videos "Walki Talki Man" are fun to watch. But is that all? Just to entertain People. I like director that goes a little bit deeper.

         

lol

I think Michel puts a lot of heart into his work, which for me is very deep. (I'm a tool, I know.)

Interestingly enough my Cunningham site gets around 1,000 unique hits daily, while Gondry averages 600. And Chris ain't active at the moment. I voted for Gondry, though.

Auggie: I was going to do a Spike site but keeping Michel & Chris in line is hard work. A guy's gotta have a social life.

         

"I think Michel puts a lot of heart into his work, which for me is very deep."

but that's just it though. his work is very personal and meaningful, it's just that it's not somber or faux-important. gondry is often deep, if you dig a little deeper.

         

ok, ok. I think Michel Gondry is "deep", too. But when i saw his "Walki Talki" Video i thought that he is just a 12 year old Kid which is playing with Lego. He doing the same thing over and over again. And of course his work got heart. A lot of. I´m a big fan of his work. And his movies are great. But often he is just a big kid. Which is fine. Which is more than that. I don´t know how i can really discribe what i don´t like at him. (excuse my english)

         

Well he doesn't tackle big issues much, I think that's your point? i.e. Chemical Brothers "Out of Control", Audioslave "Doesn't Remind Me", Genesis "Land of Confusion" (hehe)

         

Is Michel Gondry the best video director of all time? No, I don't think you can pick one. But if you are going by originality of vision, by variety of material, by entertainment value, by intellectual concept, or by technical achievement, he is irrefutably one of the finest directors in the world. I'd rather see a new Gondry video, even an average one, than any Roman Coppola or Chris Cunningham. Why? Not because those two aren't brilliant directors, of course they are, and I love their stuff. But simply because each video is a labour of love, and that comes accross in every clip. Have you ever wondered why the White Stripes are some of the best in the world at what they do? Their songs are pretty simple, their image minimalist, yet they play with such heart and energy that their music is simply better than all that carbon copy/immature fad music out there. And because of that heart, the Stripes, just like Gondry's work, will always be timeless.

         

I would say from experience Gondrey is a better assembler, than director. Which i do like what he assembles, and who he assembles.

         

kev you should really do a spike site. Their is non out there.

         

I don't believe Gondry has made the single best video of all time, but he is bar none the greatest music video director of all time. Even Spike waxes eloquently about him.

On a conceptual level he is undoubtedly a genius. On a technical level he is undoubtedly a genius, using CGI to show us levels of perception that familiar to us but have been unseen on film. He also uses tricks from the entire gamut of cinema history that some people aren't even aware of and he has a magician's sense of showmanship - when you do it for real sometimes it's an even better trick. On a thematic level he is undoubtedly a genius, as his videos call into question the mysteries of perception, time, memory, and dreams. On a primal level he's a drummer so he understands rhythm and time in ways most people don't. On a narrative level - and this here is where Gondry really gets me - even in Gondry's conceptually far out work there is usually a narrative which you don't even catch the first time you see it because you're blindsided by his ingenuity. About the fifth time I saw the Lucas with the Lid Off video I realized that apart from the insane grace and timing and use of mirrors, etc... There's a story in all of it. And it never feels overdone or overbearing.

Michel Gondry is the best video director of all time.