Action!: Interviews with Directors from Classical Hollywood to Contemporary Iran

Action! Interviews with Directors from Classical Hollywood to Contemporary Iran presents nineteen outstanding interviews with directors past and present, from around the world, working in a variety of genres, budgets and production environments from major studios to indie and DIY. The result is a vibrant group portrait of the filmmaking art, a kind of festival in words that explores everything from the enormous creative and personal satisfactions to the challenges and frustrations of the process. These articulate auteurs include iconic figures Fellini and Truffaut (in his moving final interview), avant-garde masters Otto Muehl and the Brothers Quay, social critics Barbara Kopple and Allie Light, mainstream mavericks Robert Wise and Douglas Sirk, and eleven others. While their work (and working methods) varies widely, these directors share the status of pioneer and subversive, fighting-sometimes against great odds-to put their unique vision onscreen.

‘Action!’ draws on the very best published and unpublished interviews of the ‘right Lights Film Journal’, and contains many gems, including the last ever interview given by Francois Truffaut, four months before he died. The book also benefits from many rare photographs of these great directors on set, and scenes from their groundbreaking works.

Gary Morris publishes and edits ‘Bright Lights Film Journal’ and is the author of the monograph ‘Roger Corman’ (1985) in the prestigious Twayne Theatrical Arts Series. He has written on film and the arts for many publications, including ‘SF Weekly’, ‘San Francisco Chronicle’, ‘San Francisco Bay Guardian’, ‘Bay Area Reporter’, as well as ‘The Journal of Popular Film and Television’, ‘The Financial Times’, ‘Close-up’ (Italy), various Italian and Swiss film festival catalogs, and others.