For her 2009 documentary, Great Directors, Angela Ismailos truly lived up to the name of her film in assembling talent. Premiering at Cannes Film Festival that year, she gathered Bernardo Bertolucci, David Lynch, Liliana Cavani, Stephen Frears, Agnes Varda, Ken Loach, Todd Haynes, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater and John Sayles to discuss how they got into filmmaking and their experiences. Today we have the 90-minute documentary available to view in full.
Some of the most intriguing sections come from Bertolucci and Lynch, with the former talking about how he kicked off his career thanks to Pier Paolo Pasolini and the latter talking about how the midnight success of Eraserhead jump-started his career, along with Mel Brooks‘ backing. Through talking with Varda about the French New Wave and other directors about how they were part of certain movements, the film also doubles as a look through cinema history. Check it out in full below.
Great Directors, directed by Angela Ismailos, features conversations with ten of the world’s greatest living directors: Bernardo Bertolucci, David Lynch, Liliana Cavani, Stephen Frears, Agnes Varda, Ken Loach, Todd Haynes, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater and John Sayles. The film documents Ismailos’ voyage of discovering the creative personalities behind the camera. She explores the filmmakers’ artistic evolution and personal identity, the role of politics and history on their work, and the agony and dilemmas in the creative process. It also examines the challenges of being an artist in an age of commercialism and globalization. The film traces the influence of cinematic movements and iconic directors on these directors’ work-from the role of Neo-Realism in Bertolucci’s evolution to the influence of Federico Fellini on David Lynch, Ingmar Bergman on Catherine Breillat and Rainer Werner Fassbinder on Todd Haynes.
What did you take away from the documentary?