# Documentaries on Directors **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 21, 2020, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documentaries-on-directors/915946 "2020-07-21T18:57:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2020, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documentaries-on-directors/915946/1 "2020-07-21T18:57:03Z")
There are some directors whose work I might not love, but whose lives were interesting… I can name a few more, but I’m curious if anyone else will point them out. I’ll be happy to discuss them, too, since I’ve seen many, and am always looking forward to seeing more. Vittorio D - 10/10 This is a documentary on my very favorite director - Vittorio De Sica. I was watching this with pride as if I were his son. I’ve searched for one about him in the past, but somehow I ran into this while browsing Amazon Prime, which I know many have, and should check out. I never heard De Sica speaking English, so there are limitations on knowing everything you can about the man, but his movies speak on his poetic yet realistic humanity… I liked how it divided into segment… You had “The Director”, “The Actor”, “The Man”, “The Gambler”, “The Father”, etc. You don’t see any young “flavor of the month” directors or actors, not because they don’t know him, but because whoever produced it made sure he got the best of the best… Featured in this documentary -Clint Eastwood -Woody Allen -Sophia Loren -Federic Fellini -Ken Loach -Mike Leigh -Shirley MacLaine -Ettore Scola (great Italian director) -Mario Monicello -Paul Mazursky (who told De Sica that he was stealing “Umberto D” to make (my favorite movie), “Harry and Tonto” -Dino DeLaurentis (great producer) and many others, including his family and friends. ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2020, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documentaries-on-directors/915946/2 "2020-07-21T20:19:48Z")
_The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal_ (1985) – Fine tribute to an awesome talent. _The South Bank Show: Michael Powell_ (1986) – Relatively short for such a long career, it nevertheless tells its story with a style few other docs on directors can match. _The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl_ (1993) – Three hours long yet never boring, this seems like the last word on a major talent (and liar) who sold her soul to make movies. _Mario Bava: Maestro of the Macabre_ (2002) – Okay doc on the master of atmospheric lighting and senseless plotting. _The Kid Stays in the Picture_ (2002) – Producer Robert Evans was involved in many a highly-regarded film while maintaining a public persona as a total sleazeball. _Edgar G. Ulmer: The Man Off-Screen_ (2004) – Interesting, but generally disappointing and poorly told account of a director who worked primarily in “b” pictures. _Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows_ (2007) - Decent tribute to a producer who exerted a dominant influence on the films he made. _Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes_ (2008) – Kinda sad account of Kube’s later years, when he seemed afflicted by OCD-like behavior and turned out increasingly infrequent and inferior work. Re: Vittorio De Sica I had a film class on Italian Neo-Realism in college. The teaching assistant – whose name I do not recall – claimed her father had been an assistant to De Sica on most of his important films as a director. She told us that while making _Bicycle Thieves_, her father saw De Sica twist the kid’s arm and burn his cigarette into his flesh to get the reactions he wanted. I have no idea if this story is true, but I also have no reason to doubt it. ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2020, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documentaries-on-directors/915946/3 "2020-07-21T22:04:47Z")
I saw “Boxes” (I liked very much) and “The Kid Stays…” Very interesting about your story, but in that documentary, there is footage of the scene, but he doesn’t burn him with a cigarette, but he does slap him in the face (not too hard, though) after telling him how he shouldn’t be flippant after his father gets into trouble. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2020, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documentaries-on-directors/915946/4 "2020-07-22T09:48:59Z")
I recently came upon [Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5536398/reference) , whose movies I have loved since I was a teenager. It is a terrific insight into his methods and I had, I guess, never seen him interviewed before because I was surprised at how little he fit my image of the director of so many furious statements. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2020, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documentaries-on-directors/915946/5 "2020-07-22T11:06:27Z")
_Five Came Back_ on Netflix is excellent. About 5 directors who joined the Army for WWII. All had careers before and after the war but it shows what they did during the war and how it affected their work post war. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2020, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documentaries-on-directors/915946/6 "2020-07-22T11:16:50Z")
It’s hard to imagine, but there is an excellent documentary called “Side by Side” featuring Keanu Reeves interviewing a bunch of directors about the transition from film to digital, some of whom are on board, and some of whom are very much not. He talks to James Cameron, Steven Soderbergh, Christopher Nolan, David Fincher, Martin Scorsese, I forget who else… really very well done. ETA Greta Gerwig, Lars von Trier, Danny Boyle, Richard Linklater, the list goes on. > **[Side by Side (2012) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2014338/)** > > Side by Side: Directed by Christopher Kenneally. With Derek Ambrosi, Michael Ballhaus, Andrzej Bartkowiak, Dion Beebe. The documentary investigates the history, process and workflow of both digital and photochemical film creation. ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2020, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documentaries-on-directors/915946/7 "2020-07-22T14:36:34Z")
He’s one of my favorite directors… I see it on YouTube. Not sure if I’ve seen it. Does he talk about his struggles finding a job, and having to resort to making McDonalds commercials (especially since it was antithetical to his politics?) [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIzay3IGLgI) ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2020, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documentaries-on-directors/915946/8 "2020-07-22T21:52:45Z")
Briefly. He himself refers to it as a “betrayal” and one of his kids says, half joking, that within the family the commercials were never to be mentioned, even to this day. ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2020, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documentaries-on-directors/915946/9 "2020-07-23T12:47:51Z")
Probably my 2nd favorite - Luchino Visconti [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4G7b3tpn3Q) ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2020, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documentaries-on-directors/915946/10 "2020-07-25T12:54:24Z")
I just saw a good one.. I only know a handful of his movies, but he’s quite an interesting guy [ ### “Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick” (1995) - YouTube ]([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOmJq7C67U0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOmJq7C67U0)) ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documentaries-on-directors/915946/11 "2020-07-30T22:15:05Z")
“The Road To Bresson” (I see its online, just not sure if I can include the link)… If you type it on Google, it should come up. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documentaries-on-directors/915946/12 "2020-07-30T23:01:38Z")
What timing to see this thread right after I finished _“The Ghost of Peter Sellers”!_ One of the most cathartic films I’ve seen, where director Peter Medak revisits the places and people involved in shooting a movie that went horribly wrong. So wrong that he felt guilty about it his whole life. I’ll never look at Peter Sellers, the Goon Show, the 60s… or the art of moviemaking… the same again. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/HvmwKVtGtb8/hqdefault.jpg "THE GHOST OF PETER SELLERS - Official Festival Trailer") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvmwKVtGtb8) ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documentaries-on-directors/915946/13 "2020-08-11T20:18:31Z")
S is for Stanley Kubrick [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIw0suZB_Us) ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2020, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documentaries-on-directors/915946/14 "2020-08-12T15:47:55Z")
British documentary on Robert Altman [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/JFiWrBmE7sE/hqdefault.jpg "ALTMAN") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFiWrBmE7sE)