My First Movie Twenty Celebrated Directors Talk about Their First Film [Paperback]

In these vivid and revealing interviews, a diverse collection of filmmakers talk in extraordinary detail and with amazing candor about making their first films. Each chapter focuses on a director's celebrated debut and tells the inside story of the film's creation. Along the way, every aspect of the movie industry is explored-from writing the script and raising the money to casting the actors and assembling the crew, from shooting and editing to selling the movie and screening it. These interviews are not only memoirs of particular movies; each one is also an emotional journey in which the director relives the pain and elation, the comedy and tragedy, of making a first feature film. Enthralling...full of inside information and sordid instructions. —Los Angeles Times

A pleasure. —Variety

Chapter 1

Joel and Ethan Coen:

Blood Simple

Were you always passionate about movies? Did you see lots of movies when
you were kids?

JC: We always went to a lot of movies. But when we were kids it was
watching movies on TV. I guess our earliest film education came from a guy
called Mel Jazz who had a movie programme on during the days. He was an
eclectic programmer. So we were exposed to a lot of strange things-through
the eclectic programming genius of Mel Jazz. Ethan once kidded that he had
just about the whole of the Joe Levine catalogue because he'd have812one
day, you know, Fellini,The Nights of Cabiriaor something. And the next
day he'd have Sons of Hercules. So it was a mixture of European art films
and badly dubbed Italian muscle movies, essentially. I mean it was very
strong in that area. He also liked a lot of the golden age of late fifties,
early sixties studio comedy product. Doris Day, Rock Hudson movies. I'll
Take Sweden, you know. Bob Hope stuff.

EC: Later, bad Bob Hope.

JC: A little later on there was a film society at the University of