American cinema has really changed in the last ten years as more and more studios and directors use elaborate and stylized techniques as well as digital effects in their films. The best thriller movies however still have to have some old-fashioned elements in order to be successful including great writing, acting, directing, and editing.
Great writing seems to be something that we take for granted when we go to the see thriller movies but it is also the hardest thing to get right and one of the rarest things in Hollywood movies. Since most Hollywood studio films are written by committee these movies often seem overblown, formulaic and just plain silly. The very best written movies are always written by one person with a unique vision that has hopefully not been tampered with by too many hacks along the way. Under the current Hollywood system a writer has little chance of fulfilling his grand vision. Instead he or she is subjected to script meetings with talentless and arrogant studio executives who proceed to systematically kill any dream the writer happens to have of creating a piece of art.
Art is not essential in the minds of studio executives. Putting people into seats for opening weekend is what matters most. Unfortunately the ultimate result of this type of backward thinking is that you draw for the first week of release based upon hype and advertising then lose audiences with bad word of mouth. Thriller movies can’t be made by number crunching but by directors and writers with vision and creative genius.
Martin Scorcese is one present day artist that does not compromise when it comes to originality and creativity. He is one of the lucky few that get to make movies without interference from the powers that be. One of the great movie thrillers was Scorcese’s remake of Cape Fear starring Robert DeNiro.
Scorcese’s latest movie is the suspense thriller Shutter Island starring Leonardo DiCaprio and pairing him with Robert DeNiro once again.
Good movie thrillers are like wine and get better with age. Rear Window was one of many Hitchcock masterpieces that viewers can watch over and over again and still enjoy. The Birds and Psycho are more examples of the British director’s genius.
Jonathan Demme’s 1991 Best Picture winner The Silence of the Lambs still remains to this day one of the best of the best movie thrillers ever made. In 1971 Clint Eastwood made his directing debut with the incredibly scary Play Misty for Me. One year later director John Boorman made his Academy Award winning masterwork Deliverance starring Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight. One of my all-time favorite movie thrillers is John Schleshinger’s 1976 spy film Marathon Man starring a young Dustin Hoffman.
The United States does not have any particular stranglehold on movie thrillers as was demonstrated in the great 1990 film La Femme Nikita by French director Luc Besson. Stephen Spielberg started his career with one of the simplest and best movie thrillers Duel about a deranged trucker.
One thing all great movie thrillers have in common is the element of surprise and the ability to make audiences squirm and sit on the edge of their seat.
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