Books in French are on www.livres-cinema.info
Film Talk
Directors at Work
(0 vote)Average rating:
| 0 | rating |  = We can do without |
| 0 | rating |  = Good book |
| 0 | rating |  = Excellent book |
| 0 | rating |  = Unique / a reference |
Your rating: -
Book Presentation:
What 1970s Hollywood filmmaker influenced Quentin Tarantino? How have contemporary Japanese horror films inspired Takashi Shimizu, director of the huge box office hit The Grudge? What is it like to be an African American director in the twenty-first century?
The answers to these questions, along with many more little-known facts and insights, can be found in Film Talk, an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at filmmaking from the 1940s to the present. In eleven intimate and revealing interviews, contemporary film directors speak frankly about their work-their successes and their disappointments, their personal aspirations, struggles, relationships, and the politics that affect the industry.
A medley of directors including those working in pop culture and documentary, as well as feminist filmmakers, social satirists, and Hollywood mavericks recount stories that have never before been published. Among them are Monte Hellman, the auteur of the minimalist masterpiece Two-Lane Blacktop; Albert Maysles, who with his late brother David, created some of the most important documentaries of the 1960s, including Salesman and The Beatles: What's Happening?; Robert Downey Sr., whose social satires Putney Swope and Greaser's Palace paved the way for a generation of filmmakers; Bennett Miller, whose film Capote won an Academy Award in 2005; and Jamie Babbit, a lesbian crossover director whose low-budget film But I'm a Cheerleader! became a mainstream hit.
The candid conversations, complimented by more than fifty photographs, including many that are rare, make this book essential reading for aspiring moviemakers, film scholars, and everyone interested in the how movies are made and who the fascinating individuals are who make them.
About the Author:
Wheeler Winston Dixon is the James Ryan Endowed Professor of Film Studies, Professor of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and the coeditor-in-chief of the Quarterly Review of Film and Video. His films have been acquired for the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He is the author of numerous books including American Cinema of the 1940s and Visions of Paradise (both Rutgers University Press).
Press Reviews:
"This delightful selection of interviews with important directors who have made significant contributions to film ranges from the 'old-timers' to the up-and-coming. In addition to gossipy bits of information, Dixon reveals the myriad ways people make theirway into the movie business and the ways that geniuses conceptualize their primary goal as director."
— Rebecca Bell-Metereau
"This delightful selection of interviews with important directors who have made significant contributions to film ranges from the 'old-timers' to the up-and-coming. In addition to gossipy bits of information, Dixon reveals the myriad ways people make theirway into the movie business and the ways that geniuses conceptualize their primary goal as director."
— Rebecca Bell-Metereau
See the publisher website: Rutgers University Press
> From the same author:
A Short History of Film (2018)
by Wheeler Winston Dixon and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster
Subject: History of Cinema
Death of the Moguls (2012)
The End of Classical Hollywood
21st-Century Hollywood (2011)
Movies in the Era of Transformation
by Wheeler Winston Dixon and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster
Subject: Economics
Visions of Paradise (2006)
Images of Eden in the Cinema
Experimental Cinema, The Film Reader (2002)
Dir. Gwendolyn Audrey Foster and Wheeler Winston Dixon
Subject: Genre > Experimental
The Exploding Eye (1997)
A Re-Visionary History of 1960s American Experimental Cinema
Subject: Genre > Experimental
> On a related topic:
Minding Movies (2011)
Observations on the Art, Craft, and Business of Filmmaking
by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson
Subject: General
A Guide to (Short) Documentary Filmmaking (2025)
Creating Artful Short Documentary Films
Directors Tell the Story (2025)
Master the Craft of Television and Film Directing
by Bethany Rooney and Mary Lou Belli
Back
