Conversations with the Great Moviemakers of Hollywood's Golden Age at the American Film Institute

Starred review from January 2, 2006
This superb collection of interviews from AFI seminars, edited by Stevens (who is a writer, director and producer, and founder of the AFI), lets cinema masters tell their stories. Stevens opens each chapter with a succinct, entertaining description of the artist and his or her work, followed by a fascinating q&a. He has edited the material with grace and clarity, allowing the personality of each subject—as well as an inside look at the industry—to emerge. Though most of the personalities are directors, including silent-film pioneer Harold Lloyd, Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder, other craftspeople provide important insights into filmmaking. Cinematographer James Wong Howe gives pointers on lighting and framing, while writer Ernest Lehman describes the challenges of adapting stage musicals to films. The prolific Hal Wallis, producer of films as diverse as Casablanca
and Elvis Presley's Blue Hawaii
, uses the movie Beckett
to illustrate a project's development from inception to distribution. The volume also includes thoughts from foreign directors Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman and Satyajit Ray, giving their views on moviemaking outside the U.S. As invaluable as the book is for film historians and future filmmakers, it'll also delight anyone fascinated by movies and their makers.