The Essential Directors: The Art and Impact of Cinema's Most Influential Filmmakers

by Sloan De Forest, Peter Bogdanovich (Foreword by), Jacqueline Stewart (Foreword by)

Overview

From Turner Classic Movies, this is the essential guide to all the must-know detail on the style, achievements, and landmark films of the most influential directors in cinema history from the silent era through the 1970s.

For well over a century, those who create motion pictures have touched our hearts and souls; they have transported and transformed our minds, intoxicated and entranced our senses. One artist's vision is the single most prominent force behind the scenes: the director. The Essential Directors illuminates the unseen forces behind some of the most notable screen triumphs from the aesthetic peak of silent cinema through the New Hollywood of the 1970s. Considering each artist's influence on the medium, cultural impact, and degree of achievement, Turner Classic Movies presents a compendium of Hollywood's most influential filmmakers, with profiles offering history and insight on the filmmaker's narrative style, unique touches, contributions to the medium, key films, and distinctive movie moments to watch for. The work of these game-changing artists is illustrated throughout by more than 200 full-color and black-and-white photographs.

In The Essential Directors you’ll read how Cecil B. DeMille revamped religion to define an era, and how Oscar Micheaux broke barriers to become the most influential Black filmmaker of the 1920s. You’ll marvel at the efficient artistry of “One-Take Woody” Van Dyke and fall in love again with the sophisticated studio-era classics
of George Cukor. You’ll gain insight into how women like Dorothy Arzner and Ida Lupino built thriving careers in an industry ruled by men and discover what drove Mike Nichols to mix comedy with tragedy, becoming the highest-paid director of his day in the the process. The Essential Directors  presents the work of these game-changing artists and dozens more in this stunning volume.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780762498932
Publisher:	Running Press Book Publishers
Publication date:	11/23/2021
Series:	Turner Classic Movies
Pages:	344
Sales rank:	313,092
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Sloan De Forest is an actress, film historian, and the author of Turner Classic Movies: Must-See Sci-fi and Dynamic Dames. She lives in Hollywood, CA.

Turner Classic Movies is the definitive resource for the greatest movies of all time. We entertain and enlighten to show how the entire spectrum of classic movies, movie history, and movie-making touches us all and influences how we think and live today.

Table of Contents

A Director's Take Peter Bogdanovich ix

Foreword Jacqueline Stewart xi

Introduction xiii

Chapter 1 Artists of Shadow and Light 1

Charlie Chaplin 2

Cecil B. DeMille 7

D. W. Griffith 12

Fritz Lang 17

Oscar Micheaux 22

King Vidor 27

Erich von Stroheim 33

Lois Weber 38

Silent Pioneers 44

The German Expressionists 45

Chapter 2 The Studio as Auteur 47

Dorothy Arzner 48

Clarence Brown 53

Frank Capra 58

Victor Fleming 63

Howard Hawks 68

Mervyn LeRoy 73

Ernst Lubitsch 78

Rouben Mamoulian 82

Leo McCarey 87

W. S. Van Dyke 92

Josef von Sternberg 97

Studio System Stalwarts 102

Chapter 3 A Threat to the System 105

George Cukor 106

Michael Curtiz 111

John Ford 116

John Huston 112

Vincente Minnelli 128

George Stevens 133

Preston Sturges 137

Orson Welles 142

William Wyler 147

Dark Undercurrents 152

The Archers 153

Chapter 4 The Director as Star 155

Alfred Hitchcock 156

Elia Kazan 162

Ida Lupino 167

Joseph L. Mankiewicz 172

Otto Preminger 177

Nicholas Ray 182

Douglas Sirk 187

Neorealism Maestros 192

Billy Wilder 194

Robert Wise 199

Fred Zinnemann 204

International Influences 208

Chapter 5 The Revolution Begins 211

Blake Edwards 212

Stanley Kramer 217

Stanley Kubrick 222

David Lean 227

Mike Nichols 232

Roman Polanski 237

New Wave Notables 242

Chapter 6 A Whole New Hollywood 245

Woody Allen 246

Robert Altman 251

Hal Ashby 255

Peter Bogdanovich 260

Mel Brooks 265

Francis Ford Coppola 270

Brian De Palma 276

George Lucas 281

Sidney Lumet 286

Elaine May 291

Martin Scorsese 296

Steven Spielberg 301

The Outsiders 308

Bibliography 310

Acknowledgments 315

Index 316

Editorial Reviews

There’s something for every movie lover in The Essential Directors, and Sloan De Forest has created another essential text in the lineup of great books on movies by TCM and Running Press.—John Evans, Conskipper

"The Essential Directors is an essential work itself."—Allan Arkush, director, producer, and film professor at the American Film Institute

"Cinemaphiles will soak up every film factoid from Turner Classic Movies’ The Essential Directors, a new 344-page book by Sloan De Forest, who explores the most influential filmmakers from the silent movie years through the 1970s."—The Hollywood Reporter

"Author Sloan De Forest is a wonderful writer, one adept at zeroing in on the key works and styles of filmmakers from Chaplin to Spielberg while also providing useful contextual evidence for their importance."—Christopher Schobert, The Film Stage

"Fan-friendly and fun, this one belongs in the front row of any movie buff’s collection."—Carolyn Mulac, Booklist

"From epic dramas to laugh-out-loud comedies, readers will find TCM’s Essential Directors as the go-to source for the heavy-hitters behind the biggest movies in history."—Borg

From the Publisher

01/14/2022

Directors take center stage in cinematic historian De Forest's (Must-See Sci-Fi: 50 Movies That Are Out of This World) latest addition to the beautiful and bountiful "Turner Classic Movies" series. Restricting her inventory to the period between the 1920s and 1970s (sorry, Quentin Tarantino) and factoring in revisionist critiques and controversies in the subjects' personal lives or work, De Forest presents 56 selections that, for the most part, yield the usual suspects. Along with the obligatory entries on Cecil B. DeMille, Frank Capra, and John Ford, there are some delightful and revelatory surprises like Oscar Micheaux and Ida Lupino. The text is chronologically arranged, and each entry, in addition to featuring De Forest's brief career summation, includes sidebars on "Must-See Movies" and "Key Scene To Watch." And, of course, there is the "TCM Library" signature cornucopia of splashy and gorgeous photographs and stills. VERDICT Just lovely. Fans of the "TCM Library" series will be delighted.—Barry X. Miller

Library Journal