I'm glad I didn't go to film school. There's a good chance I'd be seated next to someone who won't stop going on about how Taxi Driver is their favorite film and the person in front who worships at the altar of Jean Luc Godard. I can just see the whole experience as exhausting. There's a story that PT Anderson shared where his first instructor at NYU said "If anyone wants to make Terminator 2, get out." Anderson thought "What if I want to make Terminator 2?". I often use this example when I find myself thinking "What if?"
I posted a while back about a handful books I use for reference and discovering new genre flicks. Here are 5 books I turn to that are a hell of a lot less expensive than enrolling in a class.
1. The Mind: Hitchcock/Truffaut
My fascination with this director goes all the way back to when I was ten. I was at a Hitchcock themed exhibit at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. It was called The History of Alfred Hitchcock: The Art of Making Movies.
I wasn't really aware of 'the body of work' from a director. I knew of Spielberg, Dante and Zemeckis. But Hitch had a body of work that spanned six decades. This exhibit was probably the best thing to happen to me in my development as a film geek.
"This is going to be daunting." That was my first thought when I stared in wonderment at the film reel scrawled from wall to wall completing a circle around the room. Eyes moving left starting at "The Pleasure Garden 1925 and ending up, finally, at Family Plot 1976." The idea of tracking a director's body of work had never really occured to me before. Yet, there it was, literally splayed out in front of my eyes, the entirety of a filmography that spanned from the silent era to the 70s. All told: 57 films. I had a lot of homework ahead of me. They replaced the attraction at MGM Studios in January 2003. The reason- lack of relevance among the general public. What replaced this important piece of history? A Shrek 4D exhibit.
Hitchcock/Truffaut is the essential companion to not just someone getting into the director, but getting into how film is made. It's a film school from one of the masters of the form. Hitch and Truffaut go through every single one of his pictures. I'm still on that journey I started as a kid in trying to watch all of his pictures. What better guide could you want on this journey than the Master of Suspense himself?
2. The Eye: In the Blink of An Eye by Walter Murch/
The Conversations with Michael Ondaatje
I have come to terms with the fact that I will never be a filmmaker. At least not a director. If there was one profession within the industry I would be interested in it would be editor. I haven't edited a single frame. Yet I have a fountain of ideas I want to someday make reality.
In the Blink of an Eye is a study of the discipline of editing. In the book, Murch discusses six criteria for editing:
Emotion, Story, Rhythm, Direction of the audience's sight, Bidemnsional space of the screen and Tridimensional space of the action (continuity). That scene is cool but does it serve the movie? No? Cut it.
The Conversations allows Murch to spill his exuberance all over the page with his interviews with Michael Ondaatje. You hear him discuss his editing on The Godfather, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now and The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
3. The Spirit: Sculpting In Time by Andrei Tarkovsky
"The distinctive time running through the shots makes the rhythm of the picture and the rhythm is determined not by the length of the edited pieces but by the pressure of the time that runs through them."
Andrei Tarkovsky only made 7 films in his lifetime. At least 4 of them can be considered masterful while the other half are really, really good. So it came as a no brainer that I had to have this book when I found out about it.
I've always thought of myself of more of a spiritualist when it comes to the mysteries of life. Tarkovsky makes the kind of movies you go to when you have a good chunk of time cleared in your schedule. He's as much of a philosopher as he is a filmmaker.
If his movies are his church, Sculpting In Time is his scripture.
Also recommend: Notes on the Cinemotograph by Robert Bresson, Transcendentalism in Film by Paul Schrader
4. The Body: Making Movies by Sidney Lumet
Lumet doesn't have a distinct style. He just knows exactly where to put the camera, how to block a scene, how to use space. Even some of the more exciting stylistic directors would be jealous of a body of work that includes 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, The Verdict, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.
This was the first book on filmmaking I read and it's lessons are still invaluable. You get to hear his theories on filmmaking, on-set stories, and his methods of working with actors. Lumet guides us from conception of the idea to the first screening. It's all told in a completely unpretentious, totally relatable prose.
5. The Hand: Story by Robert McKee
"Story is about principles, not rules. Story is about thoroughness, not shortcuts. Story is about respect, not disdain for the audience. Story is about originality, not duplication." This book is aimed at apiring screenwriters but has a ton of information on the craft of writing in general. So if you find yourself in a bind and want to make a movie where nobody goes through any changes in particular, you know, more as a reflection of what happens in the real world- stick to McKee.
And why the fuck are you wasting my two precious hours with your movie?
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