Like almost all documentaries, the success of "Great Directors" depends on how interested one is in the subject matter, and since this one involves movies, I liked it. Angela Ismailos' film includes 10 interviews with some of her favorites, people like Bernardo Bertolucci, Catherine Breillat, Liliana Cavani, Stephen Frears, Todd Haynes, Richard Linklater, Ken Loach, David Lynch, John Sayles and Agnes Varda.
Ismailos, who manages to squeeze her attractive, blonde self into every interview, is a fan, and her questions reflect it. Few are truly penetrating, but they are good enough to allow the filmmakers time to explain why they do what they're doing and to tell pleasantly illustrative stories about their careers.
Sayles, who is one of my favorites, explains that he writes many commercial, big-studio screenplays to earn the money to make the films he wants to write and to make, and he excoriates Hollywood's film, "The Patriot," while sadly coming to the conclusion that "everything is political" about Hollywood movies.
Bertolucci talks about the influence of Pier Paolo Pasolini, and discusses Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider after a clip of them in the famous buttery sex scene from "Last Tango in Paris," a moment Pasolini would have loved. Linklater discusses his admiration for Rainer Fassbinder, and Breillat tells the story of her first film, made when she was 16. French courts ruled that no one under 17 could see the movie, and Breillat laughs as she talks about not being allowed to see her own movie.
Loach and Frears talk about making films in the Margaret Thatcher days, and Frears relates tales of working with great English actresses like Helen Mirren and Judi Dench. Lynch discusses "Blue Velvet" and "Eraserhead," and there are a lot of good–if too brief–clips from each director's most memorable movies.
It's too easy to quibble about which directors Ismailos chose to interview, or which clips to use, but it's her film, so she gets to make her own decisions. Good entertainment for movie fans of all ages.
Opens today at the Tivoli
–Joe