Moviemakers' Master Class: Private Lessons from the World's Foremost Directors

Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: An amazing conglomeration of incredible interviews. Tirard works like a master extracting answers from the industries top directors. The responses are amazing and incredibly helpfull. A must have book!

Rating:
Summary: BEST of its kind
Review: This book is absolutely fantastic -- both very readable to a general audience, as well as very informative to a filmmaking one. By asking basically the exact same questions to each of these twenty famous and/or award-winning Directors, he allows us to compare/contrast how each think... & it's fascinating how often these Directors think _differently_ from each other. Ie, twenty (20) different, yet equally valid, perspectives.

This isn't some puff-piece or "tell me about that bitchy Actress" kind of text. Instead, Tirard asks questions targeting the Directors' creative process, from How they conceive (their work), to What they like to make & Why, and even on to For Whom they make it. Plus a very interesting filmic question: "Do you consider yourself the Author of your Films". Tirard can even be [forgiven] his "Are films Art" question... b/c he received some rather interesting answers, esp. by those whose work is considered 'Art'.

Best of all, is Tirard's method -- he asks his standard [ie. excellent] questions, continues on with some very incisive follow-up... & then gets the hell out of the way (definitely unlike the "me-too" style of Bogdanovich). Refreshing.

Absolutely 10 stars for a tremendous work -- This text is a MUST-HAVE for anybody who loves films... & *especially* for anybody who wants to make film. Everybody seems to have their own [strongly-held] opinion of the 'Right Way' to make films... well, this text gives twenty different "Right Ways" to make films, by some of the very best filmmakers around. I just wish they weren't all White Males... I'd've loved to hear Mira Nair's interview, or Nora Ephron's. Where's Volume 2?

Rating:
Summary: A great survey of directing philosophies...
Review: This is a fantastic book because it is a concise survey of a huge range of different directors. You get a strong sense that each director has developed a style relative to their strengths and background, and that diversity is instructive. The key goal is not learning the one way, but to develop a style that matches one's personality. There is one great exchange, where one director tries a technique that another uses and it doesn't work. I've been rereading the book, since it is as much about managing a set as creating a vision with applicability beyond movies.

Rating:
Summary: Essential film reading!
Review: This is an extremely enlightening book for movie lovers as well as aspiring filmmakers. It is refreshing to read about directors talking candidly about their craft with a peer. It is neither boring like some of the more technical books out there nor is it selfserving like books by lone directors. It does not hurt that most of my favorite directors are featured here. The book was recommended to me, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is interested in filmmaking.