December 12, 2002
By Derek Miner
With the mainstreaming of Hollywood business as a form of entertainment in itself, the job of film director now carries a level of celebrity that inspires many starry-eyed youngsters to try their hand at filmmaking. Many would probably jump at the chance to ask their idols just how they got their big break, but the film director is an elusive and preoccupied creature who, unfortunately, can’t offer every aspiring filmmaker the guidance and support they desperately desire.
So, what’s a young hopeful to do? How about reading a book that allows you access to said directors.
They say there’s something of a collective consciousness in Hollywood, where different people will independently develop a remarkably similar concept simultaneously. This phenomenon must work globally, as well, for two aspiring filmmakers on two different continents put together two similar books about a year apart from each other.
British filmmaker Stephen Lowenstein completed MY FIRST MOVIE (Penguin USA, $16.00) in 2000, a collection of in-depth interviews with twenty directors describing the process of making that crucial “first movie.” The aim was not just to show how it was done, but to humanize the director in the process. To Lowenstein’s credit, the results are refreshing and candid.
Lowenstein takes each subject back to their childhood to discover the roots of what made them become filmmakers, then follows them through the struggle to obtain and complete that first directing opportunity, sometimes steering the conversation to more technical issues of method, motivation or technique. By far, I found the most interesting subject to be Anthony Minghella (First film: TRULY, MADLY, DEEPLY, recent film: THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY), as I completely identified with his attitude and approach to filmmaking.
The most fascinating aspect of MY FIRST MOVIE, however, is the international flavor. Equal weight seems to be given to filmmakers from the United Kingdom and America, but Lowenstein is smart to also include internationally recognized directors from Australia, China, France, India and Spain. This is the place to compare and contrast how movies get made around the world. It’s interesting to note how filmmaking seemed to be a natural (if reluctantly accepted) choice for young people in the United States, where the English directors described a more ordered and traditional system. The difference in tone is obvious when the youthful DIY approach of Kevin Smith on CLERKS is immediately followed with the classical theater beginnings of Stephen Frears (First film: GUMSHOE, recent film: HIGH FIDELITY).
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Nicholas Jarecki, an aspiring filmmaker in the States, took a similar approach with BREAKING IN (Broadway Books, $14.00, also available as an e-book). Again, the focus is twenty directors and how they came into their “big break.” Though Jarecki’s introduction suggests a broader view, each interview is focused around a first feature film. Jarecki also talks background with his subjects, getting at the roots of their passion for making films, but his approach is more general and lacks the technical edge of MY FIRST MOVIE.
BREAKING IN is more youthful and less international than Lowenstein’s book. The youngest director interviewed for MY FIRST MOVIE was Kevin Smith, and nobody interviewed had been born in the sixties. The subjects of BREAKING IN all live in the United States (though John Schlesinger was born in England) and several of them have made a splash in recent years, such as Kimberly Pierce (BOYS DON’T CRY) and Brett Ratner (First film: MONEY TALKS, recent film: RED DRAGON). BREAKING IN also seems more open to the idea of film as business. Lowenstein seemed to choose his subjects based on artistic merit, where Jarecki covers people working the independent scene as well as those who work within a studio system.
With such different approaches, it might come as a surprise there are only 39 interview subjects between the two books. Tom Dicillo is featured in both books discussing JOHNNY SUEDE. The primary differences in the two books can be gleaned by comparing the interviews. Lowenstein seems able to coax a relaxed honesty from his subjects. His interviews are more open and conversational. Jarecki, on the other hand, conducts a very tight interview, with a focused approach and format. He often asks his subjects to summarize their learning experiences, so the advice for the aspiring filmmaker is the goal rather than the by-product of the interview. To this end, Jarecki also performs a bit of analysis on his interviews at the end of the book, illuminating the shared traits of these directors who have “broken in” to the business.
The presentation of the two books is also similar, but BREAKING IN gets the edge in a couple ways. Each interview in BREAKING IN is preceded by a brief biography and a photo of the director. MY FIRST MOVIE only has biographies at the end of the book, and pictures of the subjects are grouped together away from the interviews. At first, I thought having biographies in front of the interviews was redundant, but it really helps the reader get a sense of a director they may not be familiar with. BREAKING IN also gets points for a lighthearted introduction from Roger Ebert that puts the reader in the perfect frame of mind for the rest of the book. I have to fault Jarecki for some horrendous fact checking and proofreading, however. There are plenty of misspellings of people and things, with the name Aaron Eckhart being spelled as “Erin Eckhard” throughout the interview with Neil LaBute. Eckhart has appeared in all of LaBute’s films, so the idea that someone interviewing him would botch that up was particularly disturbing to me.
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If you can’t write your own book to get the scoop on the success of your favorite director, there may be a chance said director wrote a book himself. Spike Lee published a fascinating account of making SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT, but I suggest the best bang for your buck would come with REBEL WITHOUT A CREW by Robert Rodriguez (Plume/Penguin, $12.95). Some still doubt that Rodriguez was able to make EL MARIACHI with only $7,000, but his book is so open and honest, it’s hard to doubt him.
The actual making of EL MARIACHI is not the primary focus of REBEL WITHOUT A CREW, however. The film’s shooting and post-production are covered in about 30 pages. After that, the book turns into puckish fish-out-of-water Hollywood tale. Rodriguez finds himself at a major talent agency, taking meetings with studio execs and attending film festivals, all the while reassembling his film from scratch for the big screen. This is not just the story of shooting a movie, but the whole experience of going into the movie biz.
Rodriguez proves himself adept and confident when it comes to putting a film together, but completely bemused when it comes to Hollywood’s business as usual. He describes arranging scenes on index cards with a natural sense of how a movie should flow. And even though he dismisses it as “the kindergarten approach to screenwriting,” Rodriguez relates something akin to setup and payoff better than a pro. But when Columbia Pictures gets a quote of $3,000 for three weeks work doing subtitles on EL MARIACHI, Rodriguez is completely shocked. “I told them never mind, that I’ll do it myself in three days for free this weekend. No wonder movies cost so much in this town.”
The experiences captured in REBEL WITHOUT A CREW are full of innocence and amazement that are completely contagious. Sometimes, it feels like watching MACGYVER, seeing movie magic happen with only the most basic resources. And through it all, Rodriguez’s motivational battle cry is constant: “Get your ass out there and make a movie because I’m telling you, Hollywood is ripe for the taking.”
And if candid observations and economical filmmaking advice aren’t enough, there are two valuable bonuses included in REBEL WITHOUT A CREW. First up is “The Robert Rodriguez Ten-Minute Film Course,” essentially a distillation of the principles contained in the main text, but structured more like a motivational lecture. But you also get the original screenplay for EL MARIACHI, completely annotated by Rodriguez to point out alterations and specific examples of ideas from other parts of the book.
No matter how much inspiration one can derive from the interviews in MY FIRST MOVIE or BREAKING IN, there’s something infinitely more compelling and identifiable in the first-person REBEL WITHOUT A CREW. In fact, I’m willing to bet that if Stephen Lowenstein and Nicholas Jarecki had interviewed Robert Rodriguez, I’d be watching their movies instead of reading their books.
Derek Miner hasn’t met any film directors, but seems to have no trouble meeting film critics.
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