directing: page 3 *****Talent Development Resources..home page...site map

Rachel Griffiths also had time to direct her second short film, Roundabout, which she laughingly describes as "kind of falling down meets dark day afternoon. It's about a man who has a nervous breakdown, which I call Anxiety Has Arrived, as if I wanted to put you in the seat of having an anxiety attack." Directing, Griffiths says, represents a different part of her psyche. "That is a really groovy part of me, maybe even better part of me I think; I'm so creative in that environment. I'm so motivated to collaborate with people and help them realize the kind of collective vision. I love to work with the team and the problem solving - It's problem solving in a really vigorous way that acting. Acting is like playing, while directing is really fun, sort of like an orgy," she cheekily adds.   [darkhorizons.com interview 3/27/02]

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Gillian Anderson... has released the cash to option Elizabeth Rosner's novel Speed Of Light, which the actress will adapt to make her feature directorial debut once she completes her ninth and final season on [The X-Files]. ... Anderson, who has previously helmed an episode of her hit sci-fi series, says, "Directing was a transformative experience for me, one that I really enjoyed.  "Then when I picked up this book and started reading the poetry of her words, I found myself trying to visualize where the camera should be, the colors of the characters, the texture of the shots. It felt so intimate and natural, like I wrote it myself. I took the steps to option it, something I'd never done before. It's a beautiful piece that needs to see the light of day, and hopefully I can do it justice."  [imdb.com Nov. 28 2001]

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With both of the movies I directed -- Eve's Bayou and Caveman's Valentine -- there were so many times that if the word "no" actually meant "no" to me, I never would've done either of them. The ability to hear no a hundred, two hundred times, and still not give up -- that's hard. Somehow you have to wake up with the same hopes and dreams every day and not let them get squashed.    Kasi Lemmons*****quote and photo from book: Great Women of Film by Helena Lumme

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Washington just finished directing [and co-starring] in his first [untitled] feature, based on the true story of sailor Antwone Fisher, who went on to become a screenwriter in Hollywood. Washington also plays a supporting role as a psychiatrist... [and] admits to being in a state of complete fear - but in a good way. "For me, fear is healthy... You know I've done 25, 30 films and I've been blessed to do a lot of good stuff, get nominations and all kinds of stuff and awards, but you can get bored with something."  Washington admits that acting "wasn't fresh and was getting stale for me, while with directing, I'm alive again and I didn't sleep for two months."  Washington didn't find his first directing chore difficult, more "exhilarating and frightening. Every day was great when it was over because I was like: Okay I can do that and actually do that, but then the next day would be like: Well what do I do now? It's all new."

[But his directorial effort will be] his last as simultaneous actor and director. "I won't do that again. The kind of actor I am, it takes too much concentration and it's too distracting."   from DarkHorizons,com interview Feb. 14, 2002 **book:**Finding Fish by Antwone Quenton Fisher

~ ~ ~ ~

If "Dancer Upstairs'' featured big-name stars over Spanish actor Javier Bardem and Italian Laura Morante, Malkovich's fans might swear it was a Hollywood movie, instead of an indie.  "It is a very big film. ... I've heard of estimates from people who've seen it, of costing 10 times as much as it cost,'' he told Reuters in an interview on Sunday. But the artist in Malkovich -- the one who can quote Faulkner by memory -- said he doesn't really consider films as being big-budget or small, epic or intimate.  "I think of it as what do I want to say and not say. What do I want to affirm or refute,'' he said.   [from Reuters news story, Jan. 14, 2002]

~ ~ ~ ~

[interviewer: "Holy Smoke" is a collaborative exercise in terms of the writing between you and your sister. Did that throw up an interesting dynamic, in terms of how you saw the relationships, the narrative?] First of all we had to get over this thing -- for example, I do have a kind of strong idea about spiritual belief and she doesn't. She's quite agnostic. I didn't realise to what extent. ... I'd be getting quite frustrated with her and at the same time it was really good because it was helpful to me to have a partner who had completely different beliefs.       Jane Campion     [Australian Broadcasting Corporation interview, December 13, 1999] **books:** Holy Smoke : A Novel by Anna Campion, Jane Campion  //  Virginia Wright Wexman.  Jane Campion: interviews

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[interviewer: A lot of actors.. when they read something, they get a tingle.. they think, "Maybe I'm scared, and if I'm scared, maybe I should do it." Is it the same with directing?]  It is. You're petrified, but there should be a double tingle that you also really enjoyed the story and could bear to stay with it for two years which the actor doesn’t have to do. But you shouldn’t tread the same territory -- go out and take the risk and do something different. I like to try and do that too.  Gillian Armstrong***[from Entertainment Today interview about making "Charlotte Gray"]

~ ~ ~ ~

I had confidence that I could direct, but I wasn't sure that I could succeed at it, that I'd gain the industry's confidence, that I could gain the confidence of important actors and writers, so that I could elevate my own work. I felt anxiety about all those things. I still feel that. I still feel every film is a thrilling opportunity but that I must prove myself over and over again.  Of course, you develop a reputation that can carry you to some extent, but it's too dynamic a process and there's so much at stake - emotionally, financially, in terms of people's careers, time and integrity - not to take it very seriously. So I try to prove myself all over again with each film.  Ron Howard [Movie Times, Nov., 2001]

*

Sally Field.. makes her feature-film directing debut... with Beautiful, a bittersweet
comedy about a woman (Minnie Driver) who tries to hide her sorrow and insecurities
by becoming a beauty queen. ...

"I have a fulfilling professional and personal life. When you're 54 and a woman in Hollywood, that's often
as good as it gets," [Field says]. It was Driver who asked Field to direct her in Beautiful.

"I saw instantly why Minnie wanted to be Mona," [Field says]. "I loved Beautiful for all the same reasons.
She's a terribly flawed character. She walks the fine line between being liked and not liked.

So many female characters beg the audience to like them. They're portrayed as innocent
victims who make all the wrong choices for the right reasons. This is not the case with
Mona. She's blinded by so much sadness that she cannot see the real possibilities in her life.

I know what that kind of insecurity feels like." Like the heroine of her movie, Field
always felt she was a fatherless daughter. ... "When you don't have that nourishing
relationship with a father as a child, you're never certain how to fill that void in your life."

Field was four when her parents divorced. Her mother remarried actor Jock Mahoney,
who used to brag that he was able to discover any person's secret weakness.

"I was always terrified that my stepfather knew something about me
that I was hiding. It was a horrible, insecure way to grow up." Field helps
Driver explore the same feelings in Beautiful. ...

 "I don't miss acting when I'm directing, so I had no desire to act in my movie.
When I directed the episode of HBO's From the Earth to the Moon, I did a
small role essentially because we couldn't find an actress for it.

 "For that one scene I couldn't really concentrate on either the directing or
the acting, so I'll never do it again."

 Field says that when she is directing, she "calls on my 35 years in front of
the camera. I know so well what it's like, so I can empathize with my actors'
feelings of insecurity."

       [excerpt from "Having a Field day" by Louis B. Hobson, Calgary Sun, Sept., 24, 2000]

dvd:  Beautiful            .  biography:  Sally Field

Penelope Spheeris

"Do you want to make money or do you want to make movies?
If you want a career in the film business so that you can get rich,
then I believe your motivations are off. Good movies come from talented,
passionate filmmakers. Sometimes they make incredible amounts of money
from those movies. Most of the time they do not.

The point is: Become a filmmaker if you love the movies and you feel
you have a contribution to make. Become a filmmaker if it will fill a need
that you have, if it will fill that hole in your soul.

Do not become a filmmaker because you want to make money. Hollywood
is way too crowded with those guys already."

   Penelope Spheeris  [imdb.com July 20, 2001]
 

"I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating -- a book, a film, a painting, a piece of dance, a piece of music --
anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience with us. I think this world would be unlivable without art."

Steven Soderbergh - winning best director Academy Award for "Traffic" [quote from CNN.com 3.25.01]

~ ~

Asked to explain why major stars queue up to be in a Soderbergh movie, Julia Roberts gushes unapologetically.
"He is a bona fide genius, certainly. He has a respect and love for movies that is paramount to being a really
good director and he knows how to tell a story so well to that topic. All of his movies are very different because
he doesn't just 'Soderbergh' every movie; he really takes care of the stories that he tells.

"And he's also nice to be around; he's just a nice, smart guy and to serve him is to feel as though
you're serving a higher purpose." [from insideout.co.uk interview]

~ ~ ~ ~

Steven Soderbergh: [to Richard Lester] We met briefly in 1990 in Park City. They were showing some of your films and
I saw Petulia and The Knack for the first time... You said, "It gets harder, you know." I wasn't quite sure what you meant...

I've thought of that comment a lot and what it meant to me seems to change every twelve months. Lately what it's come
to mean is that it gets harder to maintain the course that you feel is your own when this course is obviously at odds with
what else is going on, the kinds of work that people want to see.

Richard Lester: My suspicion is my thought at that time was more to say when you made your first film, nothing you made
had gone wrong. And when you made your eighth film, a great part of eight films had gone wrong and you will always have
that needling feeling in the back of your head: don't do that again.

And you may do it again, but there will be something that will be inhibiting you in having that enthusiasm of opening the door
and saying, "Let's go, lads! Over here with the forty!" The feeling that last time you did that it didn't quite come off and that's
going to build and build. ... It has more to do with yourself than with what the industry will be doing to you.

**from book:**Steven Soderbergh, Richard Lester.  Getting Away With It

**DVDs:**Traffic*****Erin Brockovich******sex, lies, and videotape

"[What does working with Sean Penn as a director give you, as an actor?]
"There's trust, so therefore there is safety, to go beyond, to look like a fool.
He doesn't judge. He's not a judgmental person. He's an angry person, he's ornery
about life, and he's getting worse - but as a person, he's not judgmental; he's opinionated.

When you don't have that kind of judgment... which I know so well from my first experience
with acting class: I was judged the second I stood up to do an exercise with an actor. There was
judgment, there was projection.. it was like standing in front of the top therapist and having them
tell you how screwed up you were - which is not that person's place. The damage done by that kind of
judgment: your wall is so much thicker, yet that wall needs to be gone to really explore and play.

And I need that freedom, because I don't have any training under me; I don't have the tools.
And I always want it, and I always miss it. ... So, he gives me my intro; he's allowing me
to fail. He's not going to judge it, and if it doesn't work, you cut it out in the cutting room.
He's saying, 'Go ten miles beyond what you can do normally.'"

 Robin Wright Penn [Charlie Rose Show, 1.24.01]

~ ~ ~
 

"As a filmmaker you try not to separate yourself from the things you're thinking about
when you're not making a movie. ... What I think movies have become are an alternate
view of ourselves. You walk outside, and you're still the same schmuck you always were,
and you haven't been celebrated. I like people. I'd like to see some movies about them."

Sean Penn - in an interview about directing and producing "The Pledge"  [Interview Mag., Feb. 2001]

"My character [in "Ride With the Devil"] had to be really earthy, really grounded,
feminine and strong and confident. She had to be so confident and womanly that she made
these strong, murderous men feel like children. And that isn't acting, that's getting a person
that's real grounded.

I wasn't real grounded at that time in my life. I grew up that way, but all of a sudden I was famous,
I had a stalker at the time, and I was working with the best director. I was really intimidated. I was
really timid. And so a lot of what [director Ang Lee] did with me was trying to get me grounded and
I think that's why he had me do tai chi, just trying to get me settled."

  Jewel     [cnn.com article, Nov24.99]

  "It was moment-to-moment, kind of gut-check survival time for months.
Ultimately, it was very, very invigorating and challenging. And boy, it really keeps you alive,
I'll tell you that much."

  Ed Harris  [from Associated Press news story] - about making his film Pollock

~ ~ ~ ~

"You have to be obsessed, you have to be really crazy to make a film. You can't be afraid of anybody  or anything. That's what John Cassavetes said. That means you'll cut right through the business  and you'll find a way to make your own film."  Martin Scorsese    [Toronto Sun 5.14.98]   [related books:  Scorsese on Scorsese    |    Martin Scorsese: Interviews]

~ ~ ~ ~
 

"I must admit, I've never been talented. But if there's one thing I have an eye for,
it's that I can recognize talented people. And all I have to do is get them together
with each other and make sure no one gets in the other person's way. And fortunately
enough I happen to have been a good enough traffic warden that when you look at the image,
it all looks carefully planned, but everybody was coming at it from a tangent, from their own
department..."

Tarsem - about directing "The Cell"  [Entertainment Today 8.25.00]

~ ~ ~ ~

"You get the feeling he won't stop until he's satisfied, which is a great feeling
because a lot of times when you work, people just want to get the shot, and when
everything falls into frame well, they feel like they've got it."

 Winona Ryder  -  about Janusz Kaminski, her director on "Lost Souls"   [Laura Davis Prods interview]

~ ~ ~ ~

"Andrew is the most meticulous person I've ever worked with -- very specific,
down to gestures and how clean the floor is. He writes with metaphor,
and his pieces work on several different levels."

Ethan Hawke - about his "Gattaca" director Andrew Niccol [interview]

~ ~ ~ ~
 

"No, I'm a greatist. I only want to do it until it's great."

   James Cameron, responding to an actor calling him a perfectionist

*related page:**perfectionism

"The weird thing about directing a film, it turns out, is that there's so little time to think.
Moments of wisdom do not descend. You're just so thrilled to answer the 95 million questions
that are thrown at you every day - not thrilled, relieved really."

 Alan Rickman (about directing: "The Winter Guest") [Newsday, Oct 15.97]

~ ~ ~ ~

"I have no idea how [directing] works. I just this morning saw the completed last reel
of my film for the first time, and I was weeping. I was going, 'I can't believe I survived this.'
I just had to pretend like it would work. After the film I said, 'Oh, my God, this actually works!
How did I do that?'"

  Jay Roach, about directing "Meet the Parents"  [LA Times, 10.5.00]

*related page:**impostor feelings

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One thing I've learned over the last few years is to have more respect for directors... I'm not too keen on the guys who want to shoot take after take after take. What's great working with Ridley Scott or Spielberg or Oliver Stone, is that they use two takes, three takes, and that's it.  You don't need any more. Scott is very calm, very easy, a very quiet man. He's very flexible, very open to suggestions. And it makes it so much easier to work for a director of that nature. So I had complete confidence. He's the sort of director who trusts actors. I trust that he knows his job, and he trusts that I know mine.    Anthony Hopkins  [MGM press interview, Sept.2000, about making "Hannibal"]

~ ~ ~ ~
 

"[It is necessary to challenge] the dehydrated, reduced attention span of our generation.
You meet it head on by making 'slow' films which force people to stop and make them
uncomfortable."   William Hurt [Toronto Sun, 1997]
 

~ ~ ~ ~

"I was very fortunate because my parents were very creative. My father is Bill Lee the jazz bassist,
and I grew up with him taking me to hear him playing in clubs in the Village. And my mother taught art.
We were raised in a very creative environment. I remember going to see Broadway plays, The King and I,
stuff like that.

Now I could see that that exposure was very important, even though I didn't know that that was what I
wanted to do, even though I didn't want to see these plays, I did not want to see my father play jazz.
Now I see that if my parents didn't insist on it, even with me kicking and screaming, I'd have not become
a film maker."   Spike Lee  [from inmotionmagazine.com article]

<< related page: early life

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**interviews:    

Female Persuasion by Jamie Painter - brief interviews with Allison Anders, Stacey Sher, and Paula Wagner

Ron Howard - on directing "The Grinch"

Mimi Leder   director: "Deep Impact" etc.

Andrew Niccol  writer/director: "Gattaca"

Dempsey Rice   documentary filmmaker: "Daughter of Suicide"

Susan Sarandon   "Earlier films were telling good stories, and were less seduced by special effects."

Leslie Smith   commercials director

Julie Taymor  on making "Titus" and her work as a stage & film director

Caroline Thompson: on directing "Buddy"

Caroline Thompson on making "Snow White: The Fairest of Them All"

  ~ ~

  > more interviews

Allison Anders: "They say I'm the heartbeat of my film company, which I think is pretty cool.
I feel women actually are far more suited to directing than men, because we're more oriented
to synthesis. Especially if you've been a mother, you have to do ten things at a time, and
that's the kind of  mindset you have to be in as a director.

"But most women filmmakers I know who are really achieving some success, and have their
own vision, are very lonely women, for the most part. Because for one thing, we've never quite
figured out how to abuse our power."

     from article: Women of Talent - Power and Leadership by Douglas Eby

~ ~

**articles:
 

The industry women on the side by Laurie Winer, Los Angeles Magazine

A Few More Good Women  by Douglas Eby - technical and creative contributions to film and television production

Women in Film: Identity and Power  by Douglas Eby
 
 

   more articles

sites:
 

MadCat Women's International Film Festival  "evocative films and videos from around the world. MadCat is committed to showcasing women film and videomakers who challenge the use of sound and image and modes of visual story telling."

The Moondance International Film Festival   "objective is to promote and encourage women screenwriters, playwrights, short-story writers and women who make independent films, and the best work by women, in any genre, including feature films, animation, documentaries, short films, stage plays & short stories."

MoviesByWomen.com
"..includes information on historical women directors, statistics on women directors, and also includes Director interviews. Although we are not a formal organization, we have grown out of the passions of women directors such as Allison Anders who are working towards increasing the awareness of women's contributions to film and television history."

Women in the Director's Chair (WIDC)  "is a Chicago-based, international media arts /activist center which exhibits, promotes, and educates about media made by women that expresses a diversity of cultures, experiences, and issues. We strive to expand and create new audiences for this work and to advance the use of alternative media for social change. It is our mission to raise the visibility of women media makers and to support the production of alternative media that defies demeaning stereotypes perpetuated by mainstream media."

Women Wise "was formed to encourage women to use and create new media with a female perspective."
 

     books
 

Jane Campion.  Interviews

David Cronenberg.  Cronenberg on Cronenberg

Cameron Crowe  Conversations With Wilder
"A world-class director interviews the Master, and every line is fascinating. As with Zen and the Art of Archery and other texts about mastery, the shock of pleasure in reading this enlightened and affectionate conversation is the utter simplicity that comes with true mastery. There is laughter too, as with anything first-rate in this form. Wilder and Crowe don't waste time on theory or generalities, and the result--as in their film work--is truth, pure and simple" -Mike Nichols

Carole Desbarats Atom Egoyan

Beti Ellerson  Sisters of the Screen: Women of Africa on Film, Video and Television

Mario Falsetto  Personal Visions : Conversations With Contemporary Film Directors
17 filmmakers discuss their creative visions, their careers and the state of today's film industry: Neil Jordan; Michael Radford; Tom DiCillo; Atom Egoyan; Alan Rudolph; Lynne Stopkewich; Alison Maclean etc

Terry Gilliam.  Gilliam on Gilliam

Stephen Lowenstein. My First Movie : Twenty Celebrated Directors Talk About Their First Film
"..a collection of filmmakers as diverse as the Coen brothers and Ken Loach, Ang Lee and Kevin Smith, Anthony Minghella and Gary Oldman, Neil Jordan and Mira Nair talk in extraordinary detail and with amazing candor about making their first films. Each chapter focuses on a director's celebrated debut--be it Angel or Blood Simple, Clerks or Diner, Muriel's Wedding or Truly, Madly, Deeply--and tells the inside story: from writing the script to raising the money, from casting the actors to assembling the crew, from shooting to editing, from selling the movie to screening it." [Amazon.com review:]

David Lynch  Lynch on Lynch
"I don't want to give the impression that I sit around thinking up horrible things. I get all kinds of different ideas and feelings. If I'm lucky, they start organizing themselves into a story--then maybe some ideas come along that are too eerie, too violent, or too funny, and they don't fit that story. So you write them down and save them for two or three projects down the road. There's nowhere you can't go in a film -- if you think of it, you can go there."

Penny Marshall : An Unauthorized Biography   by Lawrence Crown

Leni Riefenstahl. Leni Riefenstahl: A Memoir

John Sayles  Sayles on Sayles

Martin Scorsese  Scorsese on Scorsese    |   Martin Scorsese: Interviews

Steven Soderbergh, Richard Lester. Getting Away With It Or: The Further Adventures of the Luckiest Bastard You Ever Saw
"..a hilarious, insightful conversation between two visionary directors, Steven Soderbergh and Richard Lester, about the manifold joys and hardships of being a filmmaker." [Amazon.com summary]

Oliver Stone, Charles L. P. Silet Oliver Stone : Interviews

Christine Vachon.  Shooting to Kill : How an Independent Producer Blasts Through the Barriers to Make Movies That Matter

Agnes Varda  by Alison Smith

Paul Woods.  Joel & Ethan Coen : Blood Siblings
"...articles, interviews, and reviews of the Coens' diverse productions, including Raising Arizona, Barton Fink.. Fargo."
 

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