The directors who influenced Roger Corman
Few filmmakers have had such a traceable influence over Hollywood as Roger Corman, who directed and produced countless indie movies, making him a legend of the B-movie arena. He got started in the industry during the early 1950s, writing the film Highway Dragnet, which was just the beginning.
Soon after, he frequently produced low-budget movies, and in 1955, he made his directorial debut with Five Guns West, starring John Lund. He worked across genres, often making the kinds of films that lured eager audiences in, such as titles like Attack of the Crab Monsters, Naked Paradise, She Gods of Shark Reef, and Sorority Girl. As he entered the ‘60s, some of his movies began to gain more widespread attention, such as House of Usher and Little Shop of Horrors.
Corman often worked in the horror and sci-fi genre, expressing a penchant for adapting works by Edgar Allan Poe. The director carved out a name for himself as a prolific filmmaker with plenty of ambition, whether he was adapting pre-existing stories or coming up with his own ideas.
He found himself inspired by a wide range of influences – nothing was off limits for Corman. During an interview with Film Comment, he once expressed how he couldn’t pinpoint just one specific filmmaker who stood out above the rest as an inspiration. “No one in particular,” he said. “I’d say every film I’ve ever seen has influenced me in one way or another, including those in which I think I’m certainly not going to do anything like that. I was influenced very much by [Sergei] Eisenstein at one time.”
With that being said, he did select some classic filmmakers he admired, stating, “I like the work of [Akira] Kurosawa and of [Ingmar] Bergman and [Federico] Fellini. At one time I was very much impressed with the work of Alain Resnais: Hiroshima, Mon Amour, Last Year At Marienbad.”
He added: “So that, in other words, I’m giving you the commonly accepted great directors. I can’t say that there was some obscure Czechoslovakian director whose work taught me a great deal.”
These “commonly accepted great directors” are highly celebrated for a reason, though. Corman was a huge fan of these foreign filmmakers, who changed cinema with their transcendental films, which often utilised innovative techniques in their editing and narrative storytelling, for example.
Corman recognised how important their cinematic developments were and actually helped to bring their films to wider audiences in the United States. His company, New World Pictures, decided to handle the US distribution of movies from the likes of Bergman, Fellini and Kurosawa, allowing their films to be given further international attention. The first movie he bought and distributed was Bergman’s Cries and Whispers, which is now held in incredibly high esteem as one of the Swedish filmmaker’s most accomplished works.
Contributing to Sight and Sound’s ‘greatest films of all time’ poll, Corman selected several films by these “great directors” he loves. Thus, he revealed that his favourite Bergman was The Seventh Seal, his favourite Fellini was La Dolce Vita, and his most beloved Kurosawa film was Rashomon.
