Pop Culture Bracketology: Directors Final Four pitches and results

Here we are, the Final Four. Much like our Sweet 16 portion of the tourney, the format of the post is going to be slightly different. Instead of our e-mail discussion, below are four "pitches" from WEEKEND contributors as to why a certain director should make it to the championship round. And then, results!

Martin Scoresese vs. Sam Mendes

Why Scoresese should win: Martin Scorsese can’t seem to take a break. In the past decade he has directed countless films, most of them large and ambitious. This is the career phase where directors settle into directing the same picture over and over again, but Scorsese comes out with new and varied fare each time. Recently, he directed two music films, a documentary on Bob Dylan and a concert film of The Rolling Stones. Both films makes their aged subjects interesting and exciting once again (not that Bob Dylan ever stopped being interesting).

With his fiction works, Scorsese has turned his relationship with Leonardo DiCaprio into a well oiled machine. Of their most recent collaborations, “The Departed” ranked among Scorsese’s best films and was reminiscent of his seventies films and “Goodfellas.” “Shutter Island” was a departure, with the director trying his hand at a suspense-thriller; although not an instant classic, the film is still a success, and proves that Scorsese can still develop artistically.

Scorsese is the consummate cinephile, one who embraces every style from the early talkies to the French New Wave. It’s difficult to watch his films without sharing in his love of classic films. Cinema is his life, and he infuses every frame of his films with that devotion.

Scorsese remains one of the most consistent, and long-lived, filmmakers ever. He is the protector and champion of cinema, and a symbol for the history of cinema and all the films yet to be made. -- Brian Marks

Why Mendes should win: Perhaps nothing has topped Sam Mendes’s directorial debut of the enchanting “American Beauty,” the best picture winner from 1999, but in his ten years since that film, he has only begun to define himself as a filmmaker. Branching out into multiple genres from his crime drama “Road to Perdition,” to his war film “Jarhead,” to the underrated period piece and acting tour-de-force “Revolutionary Road” and finally to his modern, mature, grown-up dramedy “Away We Go,” Mendes has experimented with genres far beyond many veterans and even newbie’s like him that have long been typecast. 

His most recent project will be his most mainstream yet as he will very likely take the 23rd James Bond movie into a new direction, marking himself as one of Hollywood’s most influential directors. 

Mendes has an often beautiful and curious fascination with suburbia living, as well as the commonalities of life, and it is a subject few directors can really tap into. With that knack, he has elicited remarkable performances from some unlikely places, most notably from “Saturday Night Live”  alum Maya Rudolph and from his wife Kate Winslet, whom he ironically coached in more than one love scene. 

Mendes’s films amazingly represent both progress in cinema and classical Hollywood. He is a definitive example of what this region of the bracket represents, and he will only continue to grow as one of the new century’s pivotal directors. -- Brian Welk

Results: Scoresese beats Mendes with 100 percent of the vote and moves on to the finals!

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Quentin Tarantino vs. Christopher Nolan

Why Tarantino should win: It is difficult not to put Tarantino's best work, "Pulp Fiction," which is top 100 on nearly every reputable critic's all time list and set the bar for the modern noir/gangster film, against Nolan's "Memento," an equally astounding modern noir and one of the most creative psychological thrillers of all time.

Both films are timeless, but "Pulp Fiction" gets the edge because it came first and with it Tarantino turned the concept of a linear narrative on its head and made everyday dialogue clever, funny, and entertaining.

Both directors were praised for their first films, exalted for their sophomore follow ups, and have had solid careers since then. One could match and rate each director’s films to the other’s, but while Nolan created the greatest Batman film ever made, Tarantino’s originality is unmatched by any other contemporary director, and last year’s "Inglourious Basterds" proves just that. Nolan’s upcoming "Inception" will probably make this match-up even closer, but although he has drawn from a variety of genres among his movies, Tarantino has been able to seamlessly combine various genres within a single movie.

And no director today is as able to make a serious scene so humorous and 20-minute scene so engaging. Quentin Tarantino gets the close nod over Christopher Nolan. -- Doug Evans

Why Nolan should win: The odds are certainly stacked against British director Christopher Nolan in the Final Four. He faces Quentin Tarantino in the semifinals and even if he prevails he would most likely face Martin Scorsese in the title match. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve to win the bracket.

No one, and I do mean no one, has had a better decade than Christopher Nolan. In 2000, he fucked minds across the world with “Memento.”

In 2002, he did the impossible when “Insomnia,” starring Al Pacino and Robin Williams, somehow didn’t suck.

In 2005, he single-handedly saved Batman’s cinematic career with “Batman Begins.”

In 2006, he made one of the most re-watchable movies of all time with “The Prestige,” and in 2008, he made his masterpiece and one of the greatest movies ever made, “The Dark Knight.”

This summer, what may be his most ambitious work yet, “Inception,” will be released. That’s a jaw-dropping resume for an entire career, and he did it all in ten years.

The arguments against Nolan advancing are valid: he hasn’t been at it long enough, Tarantino is one of the masters of modern cinema, his best movie is a comic book film. But when looking strictly at Nolan’s output this decade (which is supposed to bear more weight than the director’s entire career in this discussion), I don’t see how he’s not the best active director. -- Brad Sanders

Results: Christopher Nolan narrowly tops QT with 57 percent of the vote.

And so our finals is set. Scoresese, the long-time superstar, versus Nolan, the heir apparent. Who ya got?