The Directors: Take One

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating "behind the scenes" reading.
Review: The early roots and rise of almost thirty of today's modern film directors is charted in this history, Part 1 of a projected two-part set. This gathers the words of the directors themselves, examining how they got their start in the business and how they made some of the best films of modern times. Any involved in film history will find The Directors Take One absorbing.

Rating:
Summary: Another "Baker's Dozen"
Review: This is one of three books assembled by Emery based on material generated during the production of the television series "The Directors" on the Encore Movie Channel. The others are The Directors: Take One and Directors Take Two: In Their Own Words. Emery's role was to pose the questions to which the directors responded and then edit transcripts of the given programs televised. Literally, the directors speak for themselves. That is to say, Emery (wisely, I think) eschews the standard Q & A format. Some readers will be especially interested in specific directors; others will be more interested in specific films; still others (I among them) will be interested in both the directors and the films they directed. Predictably the quality of the material varies, sometimes significantly. For example, in this volume, I found the general observations by Gary Marshall and Rob Reiner much more informative than those by John G. Avildsen and John McTierman. (Other readers may have an entirely different opinion. Fair enough.) The overall value of the book, however, is derived from having direct access to the thoughts and feelings of these directors and I regret that such access is not readily available -- in a single volume -- to so many other great directors (e.g. D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Ernst Lubitsch, Cecil B. DeMille, John Ford, Federico Fellini, and Ingmar Bergman) except, perhaps in full-scale biographies, critical studies, and/or in correpondence.

Fortunately, however, Peter Bogdanovich has published an excellent collection of his interviews of 16 directors (e.g. Raoul Walsh, Fritz Lang, Howard Hawks, George Cukor, and Alfred Hitchcock). Also, Richard Schickel has published another collection of his interviews of great directors such as Frank Capra, Vincente Minnelli, and King Vidor as well as of Cukor, Hawks, and Walsh.

One of Emery's most effective devices in both "Directors" volumes is "The Conversation," a section which introduces each director. It follows Emery's own brief but insightful introduction to "The Films of...." I am also grateful to Emery for not intruding (as editor) on the flow of information provided in each chapter. Sure, several portions of the book's narrative could have been "tightened up" but, in that event, the book would have lost much of its unique flavor and, worse yet, its vitality and spontaneity. I think both "Directors" volumes are first-rate and highly recommend them as well as the previously mentioned collections by Bogdanovich and Schickel.