The Director's Vision: A Concise Guide to the Art of 250 Great Filmmakers

by Geoff Andrew, Joel Coen and Ethen Coen (Foreword)

Covering the true originals of classic Hollywood, the masters of world cinema, the more distinctive contemporary filmmakers, and a number of downright eccentrics, The Director’s Vision is a guide to 250 of the all-time great visual stylists. These filmmakers are each given a single film still that exemplifies their work; the accompanying text explores how they exploit the cinematic arts—composition, color, camera angle and movement, lighting, sound, sets, and action—to convey their thematic obsessions and artistic visions. This simple premise builds into one of the most fascinating, visually arresting, and insightful of all film books. Never have the images of cinema and the words written about it been so expertly tied together. The result is an entertaining and genuinely enlightening film reference.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Media Tie In

272 pages, Paperback

First published August 31, 1999

Reviews

[Carmen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although I'm sure the text is informative, the film stills in this book alone are reason enough to purchase it. A great selection of filmmakers and an excellent book to just browse through when you feel like spacing out. Such great pictures...even the cover!

[Ron Law · Rating 4 out of 5]

Factual and analytical.

[Atul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is by no means what it is advertised as: it's not a "concise guide" to the art of 250 directors, it doesn't tell you "how the world's greatest filmmakers create their spellbinding visions" and "the secrets behind their unique styles." In fact, it's rather misguided in my opinion because it uses auteur theory and assumes that the director is the one who creates the entire picture contained in the movie frame, as though the he or she is the "painter" of an entire film's moving image; but in fact a very large part of what goes into the frame is done by the cinematographer, the production designer, and many other people. It surprises me because I don't even think the word "cinematographer" is mentioned even once in the whole book, yet the cinematographer often puts at least as much work into a film's visuals as a director, if not more. The author of this book is also quite opinionated and really ticks me off sometimes when he bashes some of my favorite directors, claiming that their work is "half-baked humanism" and "insubstantial" while giving no real reasons to support his claims because he's only got half a page to tell us about the director, his life, his visual style, and his films.

On the other hand, though, this book is a blast to just flip through. I haven't heard of a lot of the directors in this book, and often one of the half-page frame grabs alone has made me want to go out and get one of a director's films from my local library. Indeed, a lot of great directors such as War-Kai Wong, Takeshi Kitano, Nicholas Roeg, and Krystof Kieslowski were introduced to me through this book, mainly through the stunning visuals of their movie stills; I actually don't value the text very much because of its heavily biased, opinionated nature, and the fact that sometimes the descriptions give spoilers for the films they describe, which is a shame for the films that I haven't seen yet. Rather, if I see a frame I'm really interested in, I'll briefly read the text for some basic information, and then go to the IMDB (Internet Movie Database) for a more objective view of the filmmaker's work.

Anyways, don't get this book if you really want "a concise guide to the art of 250 filmmakers;" *do* get this book if you just want to flip through the pages and see some of the most beautiful images you've ever laid your eyes on, and find out about some amazing directors you may have never heard of. Just make sure you take the author's opinions with a very big grain of salt.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly broad, includes many international auteurs. Back in my cinema days I managed to get to 200 of these 250, not as easy as it sounds given how hard it is to find many of the films (even now). The book is not thorough in any way, just giving a short summary of each director, but a great guide for anyone who wants to know what they're missing out on in a huge world of films.

[Lena Nechet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellently written; strong opinions; fine details and deep analysis, good film stills.