Moviemakers' Master Class: Private Lessons from the World's Foremost Directors
- Book Review,
by Laurent Tirard
From Publishers Weekly
From Woody Allen to David Cronenberg, the Coen brothers to Lars Von Trier, all film directors run up against the same essential concerns: how to direct actors, for example, or whether to preplan camera angles. In interviewing these and 16 other notable filmmakers, journalist and screenwriter Tirard finds notable affinities between seemingly dissimilar directors. Tim Burton and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie) both recommend starting out in animation, for example, while Wong Kar-Wai and David Lynch both select their music far in advance and even play it during filming. Most of the responses will come as no surprise to those familiar with the interviewees' work. Martin Scorsese, who has rather strong opinions about which camera lenses to use, believes that "the more personal the film, the more it can claim to be art." Violence impresario Takeshi Kitano, by comparison, describes film as "a succession of perfect images." All in all, Tirard's healthy balance of nuts-and-bolts information and conceptual musings should be of interest to lay readers as well as would-be auteurs. And the filmographies listed at the end of each interview serve as useful checklists for anyone inspired by these well-reasoned, hard-earned life lessons. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
A filmmaker, screenwriter, and journalist for Studio Magazine, Tirard has assembled a group of interviews with some of the best directors in the movie industry. Unlike many such interviews, which tend to run on forever, each interview here is between five and eight pages long. In addition, instead of focusing on finished products, Tirard developed certain questions that convey the director's techniques for making great films. He groups the directors as "Old School," "Revisionists," "Dream Weavers," "Heavyweights," or "New Blood" and provides a one-page background and filmography. Directors include Sydney Pollack, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Tim Burton, Oliver Stone, and John Woo, along with 14 other influential movie masters. They talk about what cameras and lenses to use, how to decide on shoots, how to handle actors, and other special ways to help students become good filmmakers. Film students and film buffs will appreciate all of the decisions and creativity the directors put into their films. This excellent resource is recommended for all film collections. Rosalind Dayen, South Regional Lib., Broward Cty., Ft. Lauderdale, FLCopyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Review
"What a pleasure to read so much straight talk about filmmaking from these masters of the craft. Each interview is brimming with insight-- and honesty." --Leonard Maltin
Review
"What a pleasure to read so much straight talk about filmmaking from these masters of the craft. Each interview is brimming with insight-- and honesty." --Leonard Maltin
Review
"What a pleasure to read so much straight talk about filmmaking from these masters of the craft. Each interview is brimming with insight-- and honesty." --Leonard Maltin
Book Description
From Scorsese and Lynch to Wenders and Godard, interviews with twenty of the world's greatest directors on how they make films--and why
Each great filmmaker has a secret method to his moviemaking--but each of them is different. In Moviemaker Master Class, Laurent Tirard talks to twenty of today's most important filmmakers to get to the core of each director's approach to film, exploring the filmmaker's vision as well as his technique, while allowing each man to speak in his own voice.
Martin Scorsese likes setting up each shot very precisely ahead of time--so that he has the opportunity to change it all if he sees the need. Lars Von Trier, on the other hand, refuses to think about a shot until the actual moment of filming. And Bernardo Bertolucci tries to dream his shots the night before; if that doesn't work, he roams the set alone with a viewfinder, imagining the scene before the actors and crew join him. In these interviews--which originally appeared in the French film magazine Studio and are being published here in English for the first time--enhanced by exceptional photographs of the directors at work, Laurent Tirard has succeeded in finding out what makes each filmmaker--and his films--so extraordinary, shedding light on both the process and the people behind great moviemaking.
Among the other filmmakers included are Woody Allen, Tim Burton, Joel and Ethan Coen, and John Woo.
Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French
From the Publisher
From Scorsese and Lynch to Wenders and Godard, interviews with twenty of the world's greatest directors on how they make films -- and why. Each great filmmaker has a secret method to his moviemaking -- but each of them is different. In Moviemaker Master Class, Laurent Tirard talks to twenty of today's most important filmmakers to get to the core of each director's approach to film, exploring the filmmaker's vision as well as his technique, while allowing each man to speak in his own voice. Martin Scorsese likes setting up each shot very precisely ahead of time -- so that he has the opportunity to change it all if he sees the need. Lars Von Trier, on the other hand, refuses to think about a shot until the actual moment of filming. And Bernardo Bertolucci tries to dream his shots the night before; if that doesn't work, he roams the set alone with a viewfinder, imagining the scene before the actors and crew join him. In these interviews -- which originally appeared in the French film magazine Studio and are being published here in English for the first time -- enhanced by exceptional photographs of the directors at work, Laurent Tirard has succeeded in finding out what makes each filmmaker -- and his films -- so extraordinary, shedding light on both the process and the people behind great moviemaking. Among the other filmmakers included are Woody Allen, Tim Burton, Joel and Ethan Coen, and John Woo. Laurent Tirard is a filmmaker and screenwriter as well as a journalist for Studio magazine. He lives in Paris.
About the Author
Laurent Tirard was born in 1967. He studied filmmaking at New York University, from which he graduated with honors in 1989. After a year as a script reader for the Warner Bros. studio in Los Angeles, he became a journalist for the French film magazine Studio. There, over the course of seven years, he screened and reviewed more than a hundred films per year. He also had the opportunity to interview all the great directors of the day, including Martin Scorsese, Jean-Luc Godard, John Woo, Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, and many others, engaging them in lengthy discussions on the most practical aspects of filmmaking for a series called Leçons de Cinéma. For the last four years, he has put all his lessons into practice, first as a screenwriter on French features and TV movies, then as the director of two short films, Reliable Sources and Tomorrow is Another Day. The first received the 1999 Panavision Award at the Avignon/New York Film Festival; the second was selected for the 2000 Telluride Film Festival. Laurent Tirard is currently working on his first feature film as a director. He lives in Paris with his wife and son.
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