Interesting Great Directors a Solid Start
In Great Directors filmmaker Angela Ismailos sets out to interview ten of the world’s top directors, Bernardo Bertolucci, Catherine Breillat, Liliana Cavani, Stephen Frears, Todd Haynes, Richard Linklater, Ken Loach, David Lynch, John Sayles and Agnès Varda, in hopes of discovering what makes each of them tick. Along the way she learns that the roads each has taken to become a major cinematic artists are not so different, each one very open about their likes, dislikes, highs and lows.
Angela Ismailos and Bernardo Bertolucci in Great Directors © Paladin
There is nothing especially wrong with Ismailos’ documentary. There is distinct pleasure in listening to every single one of these somewhat iconic filmmakers talk, insights to be found in their respective journeys giving fresh perspective to each one’s collection of works. Any chance to listen to figures like Bertolucci or Breillat or Lynch or Varda wax poetic is one that should be sought almost without hesitation, and for that fact alone I do feel this relatively slight if pleasing motion picture is certainly worthwhile.
But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t help but want a little bit more. While the collection of clips Ismailos is able to present is somewhat astonishing (how she got rights for them all is way beyond me), and while there is something delicious about listening to Lynch speak about his travails working within the studio system with Dune or in Linklater go out of his way trying to defend The Newton Boys, overall there isn’t all that much to sink a person’s teeth into. For the most part this is an extremely thin enterprise, and when it was over I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened had Ismailos narrowed her focus instead of trying to cram in ten in-depth interviews into a running time of just under 90 minutes.
The simple truth is that each of these ten directors could theoretically be deserving of their own feature documentary, all of them having such interesting points of view and things to say any person with even a half an ounce of interest in the history of cinema would want to spend such time with the all of them. It’s great the hear Sayles talk about how he jumps from script doctoring for Hollywood to crafting his own more personal, idiosyncratic work. It’s awesome listing to Breillat speak about how shocked she was when some of her darkest pictures met with success. It’s fascinating to hear Bertolucci go on about his political leanings and how his own disenchantment influences his pictures.
It’s great to hear all of that and much, much more, but Ismailos’ film is so disorganized and choppily constructed it never comes together in a way that is wholly satisfying. She jumps from one director to the next with little in the way of rhyme or reason, some like Sayles disappearing almost completely from the picture almost as soon as she’s introduced him. Varda would start talking about her influences, her family and what drives her to keep making movies now only to have Ismailos suddenly cut away from her to let Lynch talk about Earserhead, The Elephant Man and Dune, not a one having anything to do with Cleo from 5 to 7 or anything else inside the Varda cannon.
I’m complaining a bit too vehemently. I enjoyed the film quite a bit for the most part, had a good time spending a portion of my day with the eclectic group of cinematic craftsmen that Ismailos managed to lineup. My problem was that I just couldn’t shake the feeling that this work offered less while the more was just sitting there for the taking tantalizingly just outside reach. While I learned a lot I couldn’t escape the frustrating knowledge had things been presented a bit more coherently I could have learned one heck of a lot more. Even so, as a starter introduction to each director’s legendary career Great Directors is admittedly a solid place to start. But a start is all it is, the finish far more extensive than any single documentary could ever hope to encapsulate.
Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)
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