The Playboy Interview: The Directors

by Playboy Magazine, Joel Coen and Ethen Coen, Martin Scorsese

About the Series: In mid-1962, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner was given a partial transcript of an interview with Miles Davis. It covered jazz, of course, but it also included Davis’s ruminations on race, politics and culture. Fascinated, Hef sent the writer—future Pulitzer Prize–winning author Alex Haley, an unknown at the time—back to glean even more opinion and insight from Davis. The resulting exchange, published in the September 1962 issue, became the first official Playboy Interview and kicked off a remarkable run of public inquisition that continues today—and that has featured just about every cultural titan of the past half century.

To celebrate the interview’s 50th anniversary, the editors of Playboy have assembled 13 compilations of the magazine’s most (in)famous interviews—from big mouths and wild men to sports gods and literary mavericks. Here is our collection of 12 interviews with the most visionary filmmakers.

246 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 22, 2012

Reviews

[Julio The Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Indispensable for the film buff and a guide to creative genius. Kubrick on the science and theology behind 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY; Roman Polanski in anguish over his wife Sharon Tate's death, and how that horror worked its way into his cinematic take on MaCBETH; Bergman denying his films are either opaque or pessimistic; Orson Welles rating his cinematic peers ("If boredom is the sign of the modern age then Antonioni is its master"); The Coen Brothers on the Old Testament God and FARGO; Felinni musing on how all Italians, himself included are "biological and cultural Catholics". An abundanza of good talk and deep thoughts on creativity.

[Jarvo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here is a thing. In order to make themselves respectable, to give their readers' an excuse to be caught reading their magazine, Playboy have got probably the richest archive of interviews with key figures in contemporary cinema in the world. No corners are cut. These can be the result of hours of face to face conversation over days if not weeks. This collection features encounters with some of the world's most important film directors, and each shades a searching light on its subject. So whilst Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni are careful and studied, Quinton Tarantino and James Cameron are vein and empty, if talented. Spike Lee, aggressively intelligent. Joel and Ethan, nice boys but what is it they have to say? The first three interviews are the standout - Bergman 'I think women are essentially the same as men' : Fellini 'women are the great mystery'.
The interviews tend to dwell over much on any sexual content in the subject's work, but that is a small blemish in a fascinating book.