Often when I read reviews, people go "That was stellar directing!". Or if there's an award-show and they give an award for directing.

What I mean is, how do they know the director did a good job? I realize that a good movie probably had a great director behind it. But except for this, most of the other jobs on a movie are clearly visible. You can see if the actors are breathing life to their characters, or if the sound-mixing is either great or making your ears bleed,...

But you can't see what the director actually did on set, or how he did it. So how do you know who was actually good at their job and which film was only great brecause the cast and crew made up for the mediocre director?

You ever think about that?

It is his/her job to make sure everyone else does theirs.

Dustin pretty much hit the nail on the head there. The director’s job is to give everyone on the set ‘direction’.

I like Spielberg in this sense. He is a master at creating ‘controlled chaos’ within his scenes, I don’t think any other (director) can pull it off the way he does and, it literally immerses the viewer into the actors world.

‘Close Encounters of a Third Kind’ is a good example of this chaos. Each scene appears to have at least two or three separate scenarios going on in the background, inconspicuously interacting with the main dialog that drives the scene (if that makes sense?).  Whereas David Lynch will strive to incorporate camera angles/filters and demented characters that f*ck with your head and make you think you’re in an alternative void of existence.

It's true though that a good crew can cover for a mediocre (or terrible and frequently drunk) director. If anyone in cine, sound, art, or post is bad, you'll know. If the director is bad, you might not.

The director is responsible for a clear, unifying vision. When you watch a movie with a good director -- like Sam Raimi, say -- you see everything gel, whether or not individual elements like cine and sound are pretty bad, as in Evil Dead. There's still a single personality driving every moment of the film.

Obviously that's no longer true at the level of big-budget movies, where directors are generally forced to keep 'their' vision aligned with the brand. Comparing Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and The Nice Guys to Iron Man 3, for instance,  really gives you a sense of how Marvel flattened out Shane Black's directing style, covering up both his flaws and his best quirks.

Quoted from Vlade-B But you can't see what the director actually did on set...

I disagree with this. The director plans the shots and blocks the scenes. They're responsible for every frame you see and everything that happens within it. The whole movie is shot based on their blueprint. They work with the actors on where and when to move and where and when to say what line. They decide what angle the camera shoots and where and when it moves. Their hand can be seen in the choreography between the actors' actions and the camera's movements, in the pacing of each scene as well as the pacing of the overall picture, and in stylistic shots. Their fingerprints are all over a movie.

It's the producers job to provide adequate working conditions and put the team together.

It's the directors job to collaborate with the team in order to put his interpretation of the script to film. What this entails varies from director to director. Some, who are more visual directors choose every shot in the movie, others don't and leave that to the DP. In today's super high budget movies, where there are a ton of special FX, the effects team has some say in shot composition and the whole process becomes convoluted. There are directors that want to have a say in everything from set to sound design, others don't, they just focus on directing the actors.

You have people like John Carpenter and Robert Rodriguez who write, direct, edit and score their movies. But on the other hand I remember reading a Farrelly Brothers interview, where they said that they didn't know anything about directing a movie when they did Dumb and Dumber and someone gave them advice to just shoot a lot of coverage. Which they told the DP to do, so that the editor could have a lot to work with.

Basically, the movie should be a presentation of the director's vision of the film. It's his job to get everybody on board with his interpretation and get everyone together creatively on the same page.

I agree with you that in some very generic looking movies it's hard to tell what the director did. Let's use a TV show as an example. You can't really tell who directed what in an episode of let's say The Wire, but there were a ton of known directors that did episodes on that show, like with many major shows. But they don't have much say in terms of the scripts, set design, the same DP shoots every episode and so on. So it's hard to leave an imprint.

However, if it's a movie and a director has a say and major stroke, you could see some trademarks and his style can be visible, both in terms of acting and visually.

Quoted from Demento It's the producers job to provide adequate working conditions and put the team together.

Yes, you're so correct. Even more than that. Recently, I've been on a big shooting. While every department was in focus, talking to each other, just as the director who guided here and there, (there were also extras, visitors, traffic, all in all about 100 people)…
the only person who was calm was the producer. He was just controlling that whole huge set with his eyes "from the outside", and once in a while he intervened or adjusted. Almost no time he did so, because they all worked well together and seemed to have a fine schedule that worked well for them. Nevertheless, the producer got the main responsibility if we're talking about what we're at 99% seeing in TV, on big screen…

The director is too close to the camera for the big whole, and that's justified. The director no way can control everybody's job and quality, impossible. He got several second unit assistants for that. Plus the producer, being the production's very back-up system.

When f.i. there's a shot from an aerial perspective with a drone while there is a car crash on ground, well, the director has nothing to say there; it's all planned on paper together with the team. He only guides the actors there. The major responsibility of her/him often is only controlling done shots on a monitor because the crew couldn't go on without him saying what they planned is done correct.

The original question I'd answer with: some directors have a strong vision and tend to vary from the common craft to an individual style of filmmaking. This could be either phenomenally good or phenomenally shitty.

Good direction just as well can be direction we don't even recognize. It happens when the director gives space to story in a taken back, humble way of showing story. Imo, most directors are solid up to good. It's their job to be at least solid. That's why I, for my part, most times only recognize bad directing. A good example is the series "Columbo". There Peter Falk is so strong in the picture, that I believe the directors who filmed him in a calm and ordinary way, are good directors. They understand the character-based material they got. On the other side, in some Columbo episodes one can see that "look-at-me" directing, of ridiculous experimentations, to which my only reaction is - bad director. Those did not understand the material in front of their eyes and wanted to make Miami Vice, or whatever, out of one of the best characters…