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

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As a founding director of the American Film Institute (AFI) and the son of one of the most legendary filmmakers, author George Stevens Jr. is well qualified to present this superb compilation of interviews that the AFI fellows conducted with thirty-two behind-the-camera luminaries from the classic mid-20th century era of cinema, both Hollywood-based and abroad. The fact that most of these interviews took place in the 1970's does not detract from the wealth of relevant insight provided here from not only leading directors and producers but also well-regarded screenwriters and cinematographers.

For the most part, the tone is more celebratory than critical, and given that almost all the subjects were in the twilight of their careers at the time of the interviews, there is a pervasive nostalgia about the comments. That's not to say there are no heaping spoonfuls of vitriol, as the most famously acerbic filmmakers - Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder and Howard Hawks among them - show unsurprising candor when discussing famously problematic people both onscreen and in the front office. For example, Wilder hurls a sharp zinger at his "Some Like It Hot" and "The Seven Year Itch" star, Marilyn Monroe, when comparing the litany of books about her to those of WWII and then pointing out that the subjects are just about the same. Similarly, Elia Kazan calls James Dean "a twisted boy", and Stanley Kramer admits to choosing an aging Judy Garland for two high-profile films during her most insecure period. Yet none of these filmmakers regret their casting decisions.

Most of the interviewees have little fondness for the Hollywood studio politics and interference that ran rampant during the production on many of their classic films. Probably as a counterpoint to what could have been, Stevens chooses to end the volume with four subjects completely outside the big studios and in fact, outside the country - Jean Renoir, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman and Satyajit Ray. Their comments show how the business aspects do not necessarily have to impede the creative process. At the same time, stalwarts such as George Cukor, Mervyn LeRoy and Raoul Walsh unapologetically voice their support of the often reviled studio heads claiming that the family-like atmosphere allowed them the security to make their proudest work. Inevitably, Stevens includes his own father, who gives his famously terse responses to the questions volleyed to him.

Among the more intriguing comments are made by cinematographers James Wong Howe, George Folsey and Stanley Cortez and writers Ray Bradbury and Ernest Lehman, all of whom had to deal with the often singular, sometimes monumentally ego-driven visions of the master directors. It's interesting to note that the interview questions are not coming from adoring fans but aspiring craftsmen in the industry, some of whom eventually reached their goals later, such as Terrence Malick, David Lynch, Paul Schrader, and Ed Zwick. With this type of Q&A format, there are inevitably instances of selective memory as recollections made of the same film vary from different people involved with the production, for example, director Hitchcock and writer Lehman on "North by Northwest" or producer Kramer and director Fred Zinnemann on "High Noon". Regardless, this tome is an invaluable read for anyone interested in the production aspects during Hollywood's golden age.

This is one of the best books on film; it is so by the nature of its intelligent concentration on the great directors of Hollywood. George Stevens, Jr. has collected the transcripts of a series at the AmericanFilm Insitute; the remarks, the illustrations, the discussions are as relevant today as they were then. This book is especially welcome at a time when unqualified writers are spewing out nonsense about film. Renoir, Felline, Bergman, these are among the directors whose work this excellent book illuminates.

This is a book about people who made the movies in Hollywood in the 1930s and 40s, but it is also a book which is packed with philosophic insights into the minds of creative people.

George Stevens, Jr. the son of the great director and producer George Stevens, Sr. ("A Place in the Sun", "Giant") is an erudite and articulate editor whose role in the founding of the American Film Institute (AFI) helped put Hollywood movies into the canon of the arts.

For readers who are looking to find the secret about the making of great movies, this book will not deliver any answers. What one comes away with is the great mystery of film. Aside from its technical demands, the cinema cannot be boiled down to a recipe of ingredients. Hitchcock, Renoir, Capra, Hawks, Ford...they all had their own ideas and only through force of will was anything good created on screen.

This book strangely confirms a paradox: movies are both a product of individual imagination, and impossible to make without group collaboration.

Would it have been so difficult to supply the names of the questioners? It wasn't like it was Joe Public asking the questions, but instead members of the Institute, presumably all of them directors in training. As another reviewer points out, Malick, Zwick, so many more were among the hot shots firing the questions--some of them a bit critical if you take the time to feel for the sense.

But anyhow the book is pretty amazing, when you consider all these guys had done their work back in the day and were still pretty cogent in the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties. Stevens doesn't seem the least bit abashed to admit that all his top figures are male--only Dorothy Arzner and Ida Lupino directed movies for the top studios, among the directors of the opposite sex. And yet Stevens glides right over them as soon as he's named them, without a word of explanation: was there a reason why the AFI failed to interview Arzner (who lived until 1979) or Lupino (who lived on and on until 1995)? I guess we'll never know. Or, if they were interviewing all these screenwriters, why they couldn't have asked some of the many prominent women screenwriters?

Speaking of screenwriting, sweet old Ray Bradbury is Mr. Caustic when it comes to John Huston's writing ability! It used to be that people said, well, he wasn't a great director, but he sure could write! (As they have said about Francis Coppola.) But Bradbury burns the chrome off Huston's bumpers. "Is Huston a good screenwriter?" asks one of the unidentified young turks. "No, he's not," RB fires back. "John doesn't know how to write. It's s shame." More power to him for firing off this fusillade while Huston was still alive and liable to snipe back! I know most of us would just as soon wait till one's powerful target has passed on.

Plenty of books feature interviews with film directors and moviemakers: but what other offers interviews of master moviemakers from the American Film Institute's seminars, which have been in existence since the founding of the renowned Institute itself? Here are directors, producers, writers and early pioneers of the art who are featured along with commentaries by great modern Institute members. Surveys of their works and art provide invaluable insights by some of the biggest industry legends, from Hal Wallis to Ray Bradbury and Ingmar Bergman. These conversations vary widely: some offer industry and professional insights, others feature reflections and movie history; still others focus on details on working with actors and translating text to film.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch