Reddit mentions: The best directors books

Like a lot of people here, I think 2015 was the first year I really discovered film. I mean, I've been a film fan for a long time, but this year was a big change. I got a lot deeper into directors I'd only heard about before, I improved my film analysis ten fold, and I really got to understand what exactly it was I liked about film.

Instead of listing every single film I watched this year, I'll focus in on a few big focal points for me.

Discovering Godard

I'd heard a lot about Godard before but never really given him the time. This year I stumbled upon A Bout De Souffle and was pretty impressed with how new it all felt. The editing was great, and it just felt like the director had something to say. I liked it, but it wasn't until I found Le Mepris that I found myself blown away. This film shot straight into my top 5 films ever. I watched it just after a big break up, and I just thought it was spectacular. I'm now working my way through some of the deeper cuts and have loved everything I've seen of Godard's so far. I'm less enthused about his later, more politically driven films, but I'll make a judgment when I get to them.

Re-evaluating Hitchcock

I'd seen quite a few Hitchcock films but never really understood it. It all just seemed a bit dated and like everyone else had done it better since. Then I found Vertigo, and it just blew me away. His use of colour, the complex image systems, the camera work, just phenomenal. That film helped me reappraise his entire filmography, and I'm now going back through and spotting things I never realised before.

My Kaufman obsession deepens

Charlie Kaufman is hands down my favourite writer, and with the release of Anomalisa I decided to go deeper. I read this book on his philosophy and loved it, I read through all of his scripts, and most importantly, I decided to try my hand at screenwriting. I've been a writer in some form or another (blogs, journalism, prose, etc) for most of my life, but this year (and my Kaufman obsession) pushed me to give screenwriting a go. I've written a few scripts for shorts already and will be meeting my director friend about shooting one of them this weekend.

Favourite films of the year

I've written about this quite extensively on my Medium, where I wrote out my top 30 films of the year with rationales and analysis for the top 10. I feel pretty good about it, because it's a lot less blockbuster driven than previous years, and I feel like I connected with my favourite films more than I have in the past. It feels a bit less derivative of my peers and more about my own personal taste, which I take as a reflection on my growth in this subject. Note - I saw 45 Years too late but it would probably make the top 10, I just haven't decided where.

All in all it's been a good year. I haven't been cataloguing my film watching, but I watched 45ish in December alone, so I expect the number to be reasonably significant. I'd guess 250 ish. This year I'm using Letterboxd so will hopefully be able to answer that in more detail next year.

A few quick fire ones to wrap it up:

• Best film I saw: Le Mepris
  
• Most well-constructed film: Vertigo
  
• Films I didn’t like that most people really like: Carol, The Assassin, Legend, The Gift, The Hateful Eight
  
• Best Discovery: A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence
  
• Films more people should watch: The End Of The Tour, Love & Mercy
  
• Best horror film of 2015: Spring
  
• Best comedy film of 2015: The Lobster
  
• Saddest film of 2015: Me & Earl & The Dying Girl
  
• Best picture of 2015: Anomalisa
  
• Best actor of 2015: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
  
• Best supporting actor of 2015: Paul Dano, Love & Mercy
  
• Best actress of 2015: Brie Larson, Room
  
• Best supporting actress of 2015: Rooney Mara, Carol
  
• Most overrated film of 2015: Mad Max
  
• Most overrated actor of 2015: Michael Keaton, Spotlight
  
• Most overrated actress of 2015: Cate Blanchett, Carol
  
• Best cinematography of 2015: Emmanuel Lubezki, The Revenant
  
• Best screenplay of 2015: Anomalisa
  
• Best animation of 2015: Anomalisa
  
• Best foreign language film: A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence
  
• Best sound design: Star Wars: The Force Awakens
  
• Best costume: Brooklyn
  
• Best visual effects: Star Wars: The Force Awakens
  
• Best score: Carol
  
  Top 10 films I'm most looking forward to in 2016:
  
  
• Hail Caesar (The Coens)
  
• Knight of Cups (Malick)
  
• Midnight Special (Jeff Nichols)
  
• Everybody Wants Some (Linklater)
  
• How to Talk to Girls at Parties (John Cameron Mitchell)
  
• Silence (Scorsese)
  
• Salt & Fire (Herzog)
  
• Neon Demon (Refn)
  
• The Light Between Oceans (Derek Cianfrance, who I think is criminally underrated)
  
  That's probably enough, I should stop there. Good year.

As that asshole who posted that thing, I...

A. Narcissistically think it's awesome that you're asking this question. Mostly because I asked this question, and I honestly enjoy film more because of it. I disagree completely with the idea that when one understands art more it's thus more difficult to enjoy it.

B. Literary theory is helpful with many films, especially the more standard ones. It becomes less helpful when we get into more avant garde cinema, but either way, I think it's a great jumping off point but one should preferably support the analysis that has been framed in Literary terms via Cinematic ones, because that's where the evidence to support your theory actually lies.

C. Here are my bullet points of advice, in the interest of economizing information:

• Read some books on film theory. A really good place to start is with the work of Bordwell & Thompson, which is pretty standard practice for film students. That will give you a rudimentary and foundational vocabulary through which you can begin understanding film better, and often that's the problem is not knowing what to look for.
  
  
• If you can, try to talk about film as much as you can with people who know more than you. I meet for drinks regularly with a former professor and screenwriter who has done more in the industry than most and is one of the smartest people I know. I can keep up with him, but he's clearly way ahead of me as he should be. I've learned and figured out specific films almost as much just talking out ideas with similarly informed people, as just sitting there watching them or reading about them.
  
  
• Read up on a wide variety of topics, specifically philosophy, art theory and psychology as well as perhaps some science, anthropology and history. Find fields with which you are really fascinated by. Those who are interested in physics, determinism or analytic philosophy will look at and interpret film in a different way than others, I'd imagine they may be heavily structuralist and influenced by the Soviet Montage school in their own work, for instance. Someone else more interested in history and science may approach film from a sociological perspective as well as subscribe to some interesting ideas such as Jean Epstein's theory that film breaks the space time continuum. Me, myself, I'm really fascinated with psychoanalysis and abstractly cosmic concepts, things that cut to the core of human experience, and couldn't care less about free will or analytics because I don't see how they change anything phenomenologically. So it would make sense that I'm drawn to surrealism, and analyze film is a post-structural, Lacanian way, as well as drawing much of my support for interpretations from the semiotic aesthetics when I can.
  
  
• Write stuff. Often I don't figure out a movie until I start writing, and then it just sort of comes out fully formed much of the time. If you have a blog send me a link too, I'd like to see it. Anyway.
  
  
• Once you've determined your points of interest it will be easier to decide who to read/watch next but I find these ones were the most enlightening for me. So if you like what I said about my own viewpoint above, they will help, and I'll include some things that are standard that I don't prefer but am glad I read as well.
  
  Christian Metz will teach you about how film communicates information through non-verbal aesthetics. If you want to understand how to analyze film via a non-literary perspective, this is where to start.
  
  Hugo Munsterberg is the father of most film theory. Oddly, he doesn't seem to like movies very much, but the book has some very relevant information on the interaction between film and spectator, that is essential (assuming a relatively modern approach at least. I suppose a formalist wouldn't care too much about the meaning of the film itself and thus the relationship wouldn't matter).
  
  Slavoj Zizek has a lot of books on cinema, but also his documentary "The Perverts Guide to Cinema" is one of the most entertaining, as well as informative looks at film I've seen. It doesn't really address aesthetic elements as well as take a Lacanian look at why certain scenes provoke the reactions they do or what they mean, but I think that if one combines this psychological perspective with the understanding of how juxtaposition of elements conditions the viewer as evidenced by a lot of Soviet Film Theory, one can figure out the mechanism of how these meanings are being communicated. Also here's an interesting more structural take on Zizek that I've read.
  
  I don't find it necessarily essential to my own views, but Sergei Eisenstein has a lot of really interesting work, and his books use a lot of synonymous examples in other art to illustrate how film works differently from theater and other narrative form. It also breaks down the Soviet Montage theory better than almost any other work.
  
  Another essential book for many that I'm not a huge fan of yet I'd still say is pretty important to read is What Is Cinema by Andre Bazin
  Dude loves movies and is pretty enlightening for many people I just disagree with a lot of his ideas of how film should best be made.
  
  Andrew Sarris is a relatively important guy for understanding American film criticism. He and Pauline Kael warred for a while, and I think Pauline Kael is a blowhard ignoramous who never actually said anything relevant or informed about movies. People love her though, probably because she was an entertaining writer, and she was influential. But anyway, Sarris was the one who brought auteur theory, the dominant theory of understanding filmmaking today, to America from France.
  
  An interesting look at directorial style and authorship is Martin Scorese's "A Personal Journey Through American Movies". It's not comprehensive or detailed, but it will not only show you some great classical era films to look up, but he has a unique idea of the director as filling one of four roles, storyteller, illusionist, smuggler and iconoclast. As a side note, I think Scorsese sees himself as a Smuggler, and attempts to be much more so in the wake of his reaching iconic status. For a much more challenging work of film criticism from a director that is still alive, check out Histoire(s) du Cinema by Jean-Luc Godard.
  
  Finally I'd say Tom Gunning, who I actually met once and was fascinating to listen to, is pretty important. He's mostly focused on early film, and the development of how a film communicates narrative. He will illustrate some interesting things on spacial reasoning and editing and how logical information is communicated. For instance now in film you know which character is on the left by giving him some negative talk space in close up on the right, and when a character leaves frame on the right they enter the next from on the left if one wishes to maintain continuity of space, time and setting. Also his cinema of attractions theory is pretty interesting and explains exactly why people go watch Michael Bay movies, as well as elucidating the mentality of film-goers in the pre-Griffith era.
  
  Also, look around the web. Some places like Slant.com, RogerEbert.com's essays and blogs sections, or Mubi.com occasionally have some really interesting stuff. Also there are random blogs around that do really enlightening work (like mine! shameless self promotion aside, if you want it I'll send it to you but I'm not gonna be that douche) that I sometimes stumble across.
  
  Let me know if you have any questions or need clarification, and good luck!

[Post 1/2]
I think that the historical context of imagining the future is a decently important component in the explanation of why the film is great, but by no means the most important or even the most interesting. I also think the tangent into Disney's Epcot could take up ~10s, but the amount of time spent presenting it doesn't really help your argument at all. As presented, literally any movie made with a decently imaginative presentation of the future would be great, and even if 2001 is the best of the bunch, that doesn't explain why it is considered a great piece of cinema both historically and cinematically. No offense intended, but if you want to make an effective video explaining why the film is great you should do your homework.

In my opinion, these points are the best way to explain to a non-cinema oriented person why 2001 is great:
The density and ambiguity of possible interpretations, and the sparsity with which though enormous themes and ideas are presented
The incredible technical and artistic achievements of the film's production
How Kubrick as a director shows through in the film, and how it is an example of truly great directing.

Thematic development:
Kubrick argued repeatedly after the film's release that there was not a single explicit meaning to the film, nor any of its components - despite the literal interpretation given in the contemporaneous novel. From the opening scenes with the apes, we are provoked endlessly to ask what each scene means and how each fits into a larger narrative, but are never given a satisfying answer. The movie feels 'weird' and unnerving because nothing is made clear, but that's precisely why a non-cinematic person should be interested in 2001: they are given agency as a viewer to engage and interpret the movie on their own terms, rather than having the plot spelled out for them as is typical of blockbuster movies. The extended, often near-silent shots give the viewer time to think about what is happening and why it is happening (while also being insanely beautiful, more on that below). 2001 is not, however, contentless: the themes are presented as enormous conceptual archetypes in themselves, rather than being presented within the context of the movie and then extrapolating those to the larger concepts. These themes will always resonate with us: a sharp transition in the course of human history brought about by an unexpected discovery or shift in culture, the relationship between humans and what they create, a sort of bottomless searching that impels us to invent and explore space, etc. People should be interested in this movie because they are interested in the ideas that are both a necessary product of human civilization while simultaneously having a profound influence on its progression.

Production:
Kubrick is notorious for being extremely demanding and precise with his technical vision of his films, and this is, in my opinion, shown most clearly in 2001. Every single shot is exquisitely designed to the finest detail - the set, the position and movement of the camera, the sound, etc. Giving a potential viewer a sense of the incredible depth of the story of the production would let them appreciate those 'quit, slow, boring' scenes so foreign to them as the examples of technical mastery that they are. There are so many good stories of the people involved in the production that you could have told here: Kubrick's consultation with Carl Sagan on the presentation of the alien lifeforms that made the obelisks, the collaboration with Arthur C. Clarke (one of the most prominent science fiction authors at the time and a far better example of the importance of imagining the future than Disney) on the screenplay, the consultation with IBM about HAL, mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the input from NASA and other high-tech companies that made 2001 far more realistic than the other glittery science fiction movies at the time, and the list goes on. There is an entire book on the film's production filled with fascinating photos and stories from behind the scenes that would have worked well here. As a few examples: Kubrick and his collaborator John Alcott studied lighting more deeply than anyone ever had before - studying the way the light worked with the set and the actors such that it looked more convincingly and consistently like natural lighting than most films that had been made to that point. The set of the interior of the Discovery was actually unprecedented: "A 30-ton rotating "ferris wheel" set was built by Vickers-Armstrong Engineering Group, a British aircraft company at a cost of $750,000. The set was 38 feet in diameter and 10 feet wide. It could rotate at a maximum speed of three miles per hour, and was dressed with the necessary chairs, desks, and control panels, all firmly bolted to the inside surface. The actors could stand at the bottom and walk in place, while the set rotated around them. Kubrick used an early video feed to direct the action from a control room, while the camera operator sat in a gimbaled seat." I can't stress enough that that simply wasn't done - Kubrick would invent new ways of directing just so that the shot was closer to his vision. 2001 was one of the first films to effectively use front-projection, or projecting images onto the set from the point of view of the camera, to both animate the set as well as make a more convincing set than the clumsy manual tape-editing techniques that were used to fake a set in a sound stage. The visuals in the final scenes were made with a machine that was invented for the movie - the "Slit Scan" machine being the first adaptation of slit-scan photography to film - allowing the animations in that scene that would otherwise have been impossible. A good demonstration of how that works is here. Kubrick was a genius at solving technical and mechanical problems himself, for example the 'iconic' pen floating scene was done by mounting the pen inside a spinning glass disk rather than suspending it from a thin wire - the dominant technique at the time - and to make the astronauts 'float' he and the crew rigged up an ingenious array of wires and harnesses that allowed the actors to perform naturally while being essentially invisible. Even non-cinematically oriented viewers would be interested by the fact that many of the creative team went on to do the production for later heavily influential and more approachable movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Blade Runner, etc. The scenes are only 'boring,' and you only need to sell them as "it's weird but just watch it because it's historic" if you don't understand the massive amount of creativity and work that went into every shot. If you were to have planted in potential-viewers mind the idea that they should be watching every shot to figure out how it was done, or to wonder at the fact that it was* done, rather than telling them to snooze through it, you would have allowed them easier and deeper access to the movie.

No shame at all. Honestly, a lot of people I know (including myself) started watching Godard films by just jumping around each decade to get a feel for what all he has to offer. I'd honestly recommend people start watching a mix of his work from different eras — even if a lot of the post-68 films can be alienating at first — because it's likely to cut down the risk of a person just becoming another one of the thousands who only watch and discuss his work from 1960-68. (That horse hasn't just been beaten to death, it's long been vaporized.)

And tbh, Brody's book is actually a good read if you want to get a rundown of facts about Godard's life through his career. If you can look past the near-total absence of criticism in the book (and the really lazy, shallow attempts at it), it's a concise collection of info that's ysually scattered across many sources and a very easy read. Just don't put too much faith in his "interpretations" of Godard's work and philosophical beliefs, or else you'll get trapped into reiterating the same sensational position. It's great for reading in the same way you would a Wikipedia article though, just a much longer and more detailed one, haha.

So for alternative Godard reading, I'd recommend checking out some of these:

• Colin MacCabe has several books covering Godard — including general overviews, specific eras, and philosophies of his work. MacCabe is like the first step-up from Brody: he doesn't turn film criticism into One Fish, Two Fish, but doesn't have an intimidating depth to his commentary. IMO, he's the "lesser of two evils" as an entry point to Godard that will give you great background info as well as stimulate your critical thinking skills a little more than Brody. But please note that the other options following this are likely to be much more satisfying.

• Wheeler W. Dixon's The Films of Jean-Luc Godard should probably be one of the books near the top of your list of great crash courses in Godard's work. He speeds through the parts that Brody/MacCabe sink themselves into like quicksand, and covers a broader scope of ideas.

• David Sterritt's The Films of Jean-Luc Godard: Seeing the Invisible is another great pick if you want a reading-equivalent of the "taste-testing films from each era" approach I mentioned at the start of thise reply. He covers only a small handful of important works from 1960-1990 — including several of Godard's all time bests, like Numero Deux, Nouvelle Vague, and Hail Mary — while giving great supplemental insight on Godard's experiments with the medium (e.g., film vs video).

• Godard himself is another great (or even necessary) option for getting excellent insight. Godard on Godard (whatever the newest edition available is) would be the essential first pick. Also, there are a decent amount of books out there that are just collections of his various interviews — aside from the ones written/published by Godard himself, I mean — and those contain invaluable information. This one covers a wealth of exchanges between him and various people from the 1960s to late 1990s, for example.

There's also a brand new book written by Godard that I've been waiting to get my hands on, but it can be quite expensive... Intro to the True History of Cinema and Television — Currently out of stock on Amazon. Reading Godard's critical writings of other work is also a GREAT way to get insight into how he thinks about things, so those pretty valuable when it comes to your perspective on his work as well.

Make sure not to mistake the Godard books that share his films titles for criticism btw. I'm talking about stuff like this. These are incredible books in their own right, but they're "written cinema", not criticism. (They're not really even screenplays.) But for sure add these kinds of books to your cart AFTER you've gotten a better grip on his work down the road.

• Depending on how academically/theoretically inclined you are, then you should check out some of the "specialized" critical works on Godard. These are easy to spot because the title/descriptions will tell you that they focus on how a select group of his films (or a specific period) relates to or utilizes a particular subject. For instance, again, there's a brand new book that came out this year that's been on my list to buy because it looks very intriguing: Godard and Sound: Acoustic Innovation in the Late Films of Jean-Luc Godard

• LAST BUT NOT LEAST! If you want some very worthwhile, critical, and FREE writing on Godard's philosophy and work, look no further than Jonathan Rosenbaum's website. You can just type in "Jean-Luc Godard" at top in the searchbar, and browse through different articles. Skip the short Chicago Reader, 1-2 paragraph blurb reviews — look for his longform essays. Rosenbaum can get a bit esoteric times, but it's never overbearing (IMO), and serves as excellent time-wasting reads when you're not at home or don't feel like starting a book chapter.

Rosenbaum also has many books on cinema (not free) in general, which are all pretty damn great options — not just for reading about film, but familiarizing yourself with criticism itself and various ways to approach it. Several of his books discuss various Godard-centric topics at length. So see about picking one of those up if you're interested.

No problem at all! In this case, I mostly learned it by reading a lot of essays and interviews and books, in this case especially ones on Kubrick and on cinematography. I don't remember specifically what stuff in particular, unfortunately. The best advice for watching EWS (or any film) in its intended format is to find a screening of it that's in 35mm--depending on where you're located, good bets are museums like MOMA in NYC, a local university, or arthouses and repertory theatres that might have a Kubrick retrospective or something.

As far as becoming well-versed in film, the first step is to watch everything you can get your hands on, even if you think it will be awful, and pay as much attention to the choices that are being made, how a camera is moving, what is in the frame and what isn't, lighting, color, dialogue, etc., even if you have no idea really what to be paying attention for. Anything you can think of or see onscreen, think about why that choice is being made and what the purpose of that choice is. And then after viewing something, look up some reviews of it (to find good critics, a good start is to go to Rotten Tomatoes, narrow down a movie's reviews to Top Critics, and then read the full reviews from there), positive and negative, and try to match what they're talking about to what you just saw and see if you can recognize what they're mentioning. And if you can't, just store the type of thing they're talking about and remember to think about it during the next movie you watch, and the next, and so on. Practicing this will build up your knowledge quite quickly, and it will become second nature to pick up on all kinds of things, and once that becomes habit and you don't have to pay as much attention consciously, you'll pick up on more and more subtle nuances. (If you want to have a starting point for films, you can go with a list like this, a list of 1000 movies that are "the best of all time" as a result of aggregating several different polls. Obviously, you never want to put too much stock in other people's opinions of what the best is, and it seems intimidatingly long, but like I said, it's just if you want a reference point. And they link to the polls they use, so if you want a smaller list to work with you, you can try one of those. This is helpful because again you'll discover what you like, so you might find one movie on that list by a director you love and then go off and watch everything else she ever did. And then you come back to the list. So it's not really about completing the list, just using it as another starting point for discovery.) Also, I recommend you keep at least a brief log of everything you watch, along with some notes about it--this will help you keep track of directors/screenwriters/cinematographers you like, as well as help you understand what you like and don't like about films better.

Once you start to feel comfortable with some of the basics, you can start seeking out books that discuss the film-making experience. With both movies and books, you'll discover your tastes as you go along, so it's best to start casting a broad net and reading books that cover a lot of topics, and then you might find that cinematography interests you most and then start reading books that are more specifically about that, and subscribing to specialty magazines like American Cinematographer, or you might find it all appealing and want to read books on all aspects of filmmaking.

That probably seems like a ton of info and fairly intimidating, but I basically started from nothing and basically just taught myself whatever I know by this method, no film school or anything certainly. Not saying I'm an expert on this stuff by any stretch of the imagination, but I've been able to become knowledgeable enough.

Some specific recommendations that I found immensely helpful that hopefully might be helpful to you too:

Current film critics: Dana Stevens (Slate), Stephanie Zacharek (Village Voice), Karina Longworth (freelance), Manohla Dargis (NYT), Wesley Morris (Grantland), A.O. Scott (NYT)


Kubrick:
The Stanley Kubrick Archives - A great book that also features Kubrick's drawings, personal notes, continuity photos, and interviews with him

Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made - A book on SK's uncompleted Napoleon film

The Kubrick Site - A really amazing online resource with a lot of links to essays and articles


Film magazines: Sight and Sound, Film Comment, American Cinematographer, Filmmaker, Little White Lies, Screen International


Books (if you only ever read one book on film, I'd make it Hitchcock/Truffaut--I learned more from it than from any other single source):
Hitchcock/Truffaut

What is Cinema?

Pictures at a Revolution

Negative Space

A Cinema of Loneliness

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

The Age of Movies

Making Movies

There are great recommendations in here, here's a few more, mostly focused on European cult films.

Immoral Tales is a great overview of Euro cult films with chapters dedicated to the films of Jesse Franco, Jean Rollin, Walerian Borowczyk, Jose Larraz, and Alain Robbe-Grilette, as well as chapters that cover a wider territory that feature directors who aren't as well known. It was a pretty eye-opening book and great resource when it first came out (1995) and I re-read it recently and it didn't seem outdated at all. You'll discover a lot of great films to watch flipping through it. It's currently out of print but you can probably find a copy on Ebay for pretty cheap.

For a more in-depth look into specific Euro cult directors, the works of Jess Franco are covered very well by Stephen Thrower. His book Murderous Passions is great but currently out of print and going for dumb money, hopefully they'll do a re-print soon. He has a follow up Flowers of Perversion that is coming out in a couple of months. Stephen has also done great books on Lucio Fulci Beyond Terror and on American cult films Nightmare USA.

Fascination: The Celluloid Dreams Of Jean Rollin and Lost Girls are both pretty great books covering the cinema of Jean Rollin, one of my favorite Euro cult directors. There is another book on Rollin called Psychedelic Sex Vampires, but it's a bust.

Dario Argento: The Man, the Myths & the Magic is very good. There's another good Argento book called Art of Darkness but it is out of print and expensive, but if you are a fan, it is worth it if you can find a relatively cheaper used copy somewhere.

If you like giallo, the So Deadly, So Perverse books Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 are awesome.

If you are in the mood for less reading and more art, Nicolas Winding Refn did a cool book titled The Act of Seeing which has photos of his cult & exploitation film poster collection. It's rad. The publisher of The Act of Seeing, FAB Press, has done so many fantastic books, covering cult films from all over the world.

For magazines, Cinema Sewer is a pretty great current magazine, and you can't go wrong with old back issues of the now sadly defunct Video Watchdog that was run by Tim Lucas, who you might know from his multiple audio commentaries and liner notes.

As u/johnnyslick said, there's really only so much you can do teaching yourselves, and you are probably not the best judge of what good / bad technique is at this point. Getting an experienced and impartial coach is key. You'll have to spend some money on either a coach or taking classes, if they're offered near you.

I'll say this - not every coach is great, and even an experienced improviser may not be the best teacher. You may learn something from any coach, but a great coach has more impact.

A good coach knows how to teach -- if they work with an improv school with multiple levels, there is a curriculum, standards for what students should know at the end of level a/b/c/d etc. They can evaluate their students, correct them appropriately, encourage them as needed, deal with issues, etc.

Group coaching is different from individual coaching, but coaches can often give individual players take-home advice for specific things they're blocked about.

One of the best coaches at our organization, Jason Lewis, wrote a book on coaching improv. It's available as an e-book on Amazon. It doesn't go too much into any one particular theory of improv at all, but it is fantastic about communicating a theory of how to help improvisers improve with specific, repeated drills - derived from researching how other kinds of teams (sports, business, military, etc.) get better at their craft.

https://www.amazon.ca/How-Teach-Improvised-Comedy-Improvisors-ebook/dp/B01N3U3145

Yes, see as much good improv as you can. Even if it's just on video (there's many sets on YouTube; check out The Perfect Harold, a rather legendary set by Mike O'Brien's old team, The Reckoning, at iO Chicago; and the TJ and Dave movie, Trust Us, This Is All Made Up, on iTunes)

But training with intensity, and having a regular performance schedule, is key. If you can, go do the 5-week summer intensive at iO. Sign up for your local Fringe Festival. Try to get up in front of audiences as often as possible (and not always in a bar).

Music all the way. I swear, one song can transport me somewhere else entirely and that is why I think it's so amazing and I am so, so happy that it exists. Like, I can listen to Pink Floyd and feel ready and invincible to take on anything. I can listen to (don't judge) Selena Gomez and feel like I am in high school again getting ready to go out for the night just jamming to pointless music laughing and being not old yet. I can listen to The Cranberries and feel INSTANTLY angsty and lose myself in my mind. I fucking love it all. I wish I could store the feelings I get from music and keep them in a tiny vial around my neck, to drink or something when I don't have it on me to listen to. So yeah, that's what makes me feel better. Also, Wes Anderson does, so this book is pretty neat. Thanks for the contest. And also for reminding me once again various situations in which music kicks my ass back into shape. I hope you feel better <3

Ahh, yes, The Birth of a Nation. Despite it's unavoidable stature, it wasn't necessarily the best movie from that year, or the best movie made up until that point, y'know? It's just where Hollywood got its start from. Put simply, if you try to do this by watching the 'official' classics, you're going to have a bad time.

I have found this book really useful so try to find it at a library or just buy it. (Despite the name, a good number of directors who only worked partially in America are represented in it.)

I'd also suggest not working forward chronologically because that'll take forever and, as I've learned from a similar project with a few of the mods here, you never know what'll be good and what'll still be crap a century later. Let somebody else do the recommending for you. Figure out which directors and genres interest you and then mix them all up, even I'd go a little crazy trying to only watch silents.

Also note that silent films in many cases are available on YouTube in excellent quality, everything from obscure stuff to what are considered the masterpieces of the period. This is better than trying to find and watch them on DVD in my experience.

I think there's a bit of bias towards milestone in technique movies from that long ago and the really great movies don't get talked about enough. von Sternberg's late period silents are still entertaining as fuck today. We can say the same of the more well-known Murnau, Lang, Chaplin, and Keaton. (In the last case, new restorations of his movies look like they could have be filmed yesterday.) All of these guys made great movies, and none of them made 'art' movies, whatever that means.

My guess is that once you're actually enjoying watching old movies the occasional milestone movie that doesn't feel so great won't feel like a waste of time.

Lynch has stated that the film was borne of the fear and anxiety he felt upon hearing that he was going to be a father, but, that's just what inspired him, not necessarily what the film is about.

I personally don't have any real analysis, even though I'm a major Lynch fanatic. I just can't really pin this one down and explain it. And I don't think any singular analysis can be considered correct. I think this movie is just a really personal experience for people. You walk away with what you read into it, and more importantly, what you feel as you're watching it. For this film, I prefer to look at analyses that don't explain the film as a whole, but rather discuss certain aspects and how they're working structurally in the film and what have you, rather than straight plot analysis.

Justus Nieland (a professor of mine) just wrote a book on Lynch (called simply "David Lynch") and he has some really compelling stuff about Eraserhead. And (if I recall correctly) he never offers an analysis of the entire film, but dissects certain aspects, like it's "bad plumbing" and other minor details that give you a lot of insight into the beauty of it all. If you're interested in Lynch's stuff in general, I'd suggest picking it up, along with "The Impossible David Lynch." Great discussions of his work.

Anyway, I don't think Lynch is saying anything specific in this particular film. I think Lynch is much more a director of affect than a director of concise meaning. Generally, he creates atmospheres that make you feel first and foremost, and what you take away as meaning is secondary, and much less cut and dry.

Theres a 15 part documentary on Hulu called The Story of Film: An Odyssey. It's excellent, and it will give you a very broad understanding of the history of film.

As for lists, one good way to start is to watch all of the movies on the [AFI 100] (http://www.afi.com/100Years/movies.aspx). That will give you a very broad picture of the history of American movies. Just set aside one day a week and watch one movie on the list every week.

Don't just watch them. Try to find out WHY each movie is revered as it is. After watching it, then read as much as you can about it. Read Roger Ebert's review, read it's entry on Filmsite.org, and start trying to contextualize each movie in its place in cinema history.

That will take you two years, but you'll have a much deeper appreciation than you do now.

After that, I suggest watching the BFI Sight and Sound Top 50. That will give you a more broad understanding of foreign film as well.

As for books I assign these to my class:

Film Art: An Introduction
This is the textbook that the department assigns. Its pretty broad and a decent overview.

Hitchcock In the 1960's Francois Truffaut interviewed Alfred Hitchcock and covered his entire filmography in detail. Fantastic, indispensable read.

What Is Cinema?
Andre Bazin was a french film critic, and the originator of Auteur theory. This is one of the original film theory books.

The American Cinema
Andrew Sarris is the American analog of Bazin. This is also a fundamental Film Theory book.

That should give you a solid start.

I got this for xmas last year, and it's great. I've done a fair amount of critical thinking and writing on Anderson, but that book really focuses on his prior cinematic influences, many of which were an eye-opener for me.

Matt Zoller Seitz is a capable writer and his interpretive work is both well done and well documented. Nicely applied ecological criticism at its best, and mostly from first-hand sources.

Anderson is not a "quirky" film maker. He's a film maker who knows what he wants, and has a wealth of film history backing up his choices. His films are simultaneously completely original in their presentation of a unique vision... while also relying heavily on vocabulary and motifs from those that have gone before.

He stands on giant shoulders and then moves the camera forward (mostly in static composition and right down the center of frame).

(note /u/sockpuppettherapy this post isn't really aimed at you in any way I'm just using your post as a launching point)

> There is no Roger Ebert of gaming

Speaking of Ebert as far as I'm aware he and Martin Scorsese are friends. Ebert still continues to review Scorsese's films and even wrote an entire book on him.

Is this a lack of proper objectivity? Is it a minor form of corruption as well? I agree that taking sexual favours for coverage would constitute a blatant breach of ethics but where does the line of corruption start? Is it writing about a friend? A close friend? A former lover? A current lover? A significant other? When does one cross the line from simply writing about someone they know through work to it becoming a conflict of interest? Is it only when sex is involved or does it start earlier? Is Ebert violating the ethics of journalism that people are trying to uphold here?

I'm reading the book Starting Point which gives a lot of really amazing insight into how Ghibli is the success that it is. Miyazaki is very idealistic as to how films should be and as to the experience that people receive from them. He has such strong intuition, vision and work ethic that he's able to make his ideals a reality.

In the book Miyazaki talks about how all films, even if they're lightweight or more common and popular, should be "filled with a purity of emotion". He says (written in 1988) "There are few barriers to entry into these films - they will invite anyone in - but the barriers to exit must be high and purifying. Films must also not be produced out of idle nervousness or boredom, or be used to recognize, emphasize, or amplify true vulgarity. And in that context, I must say that I hate Disney's works. The barrier to both the entry and exit of Disney films is too low and too wide. To me, they show nothing but contempt for the audience."

He has similarly critical views about pretty much all anime as well. It makes me think that even though he respects John Lasseter, he probably doesn't care for most Pixar films either.

Its amazing how all there are all these things about him that just combine perfectly to allow him to make the movies he does. I guess that's the mark of a genius, only Miyazaki could've been capable of making those films. It'll be a sad day for film and animation when Miyazaki is gone.

Regarding Miyazaki, the themes of female protagonists and ecological concerns might be a little obvious or overdone, but all depends on the context.
I suggest you to give a reading (if you've not already done so) to the "Starting Point" book http://www.amazon.com/Starting-Point-1979-1996-Hayao-Miyazaki/dp/1421505940 (it has a follow-up, "Turning Point" ). It's a compilation of interviews, speeches and short writings by Miyazaki himself (before 1996), mostly about his works; I've read it recently, and I found it fascinating, it has lots of interesting ideas; Miyazaki is a clever, articulated and nuanced guy.
For example, he reflects about in what sense animation can be called "escapism", and it what sense that escapism can be justified and healthy (this could be related to the thoughts of Tolkien (in his essay "On Fairy-Stories") - he also regrets that most anime lacks any "purifying" effect -or even intention.

If he's a fan of Wes Anderson, there's a book I was gifted by a friend for Christmas one year and I loved it https://www.amazon.com/Anderson-Collection-Matt-Zoller-Seitz/dp/081099741X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1479769976&sr=8-1&keywords=wes+anderson+book

Another interesting idea that my girlfriend did for me, she made a picture frame into a little drop box for ticket stubs you get at movie theaters. Fun way to keep a hold of them and document every movie you go to at a theater.

First, I say if people are still showing up and having fun, don't look a gift horse in the mouth. You have people who are coming despite their nervousness and inability, don't get too bogged down in trying to figure out why. Just enjoy the fact they're there at all. Also, you're never going to give every player everything they want out of every class. Don't even try.

Second, as someone who has been doing improv for some time and who loves to talk shop, even I would struggle to answer this many questions for a coach looking for feedback. You're going to get no answers instead of some answers if you ask this much of your players. If you're dead set on getting this kind of direct feedback, do multiple short surveys over time that each focus on a single area instead of one survey to rule them all.

Third, you can always incorporate the opportunity for feedback into your sessions. You can learn what your players like by asking about it at the end of class, for example, and letting everyone participate. Our community does a thing called "liked and learned" where you circle up at the end of class and mention one thing you liked about something someone else did or one thing you learned. You can even ask at the end of class what everyone would like to focus on next week, then pick a topic and formulate the next session around it.

Fourth, you can gauge the success of your feedback without player input. Did your feedback make the player visibly nervous, upset, put them in "thinky town", or cause them to leave? Might have been bad feedback. Did your feedback cause them to nod, loosen up, re-do the exercise successfully? Your feedback was probably okay. You'll learn over time which types of feedback work for which players based on how successfully your feedback puts them back on the path to success.

Fifth, buy this book. I am not Jason Lewis and am not associated with this book in any way, but I feel like it's required reading for anybody who is serious about teaching improv.

1. Pretty much everything from Peter Kramer (University of East Anglia) is worthy:
   
   http://www.puremovies.co.uk/author/peter-kramer/
   
   https://www.uea.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.138319!Publications%20Mr%20Peter%20Kramer.pdf
   
   http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=peter+kramer
   
   
2. Kubrick Estate's own books:
   
   http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stanley-Kubrick-Archives-Anniversary-Special/dp/3836508893/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416070674&sr=8-1&keywords=kubrick+archive
   
   http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stanley-Kubricks-Napoleon-Greatest-Movie/dp/3836523353/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416070738&sr=8-1&keywords=kubrick+napoleon
   
   http://www.amazon.co.uk/Making-Stanley-Kubricks-2001-Odyssey/dp/B00MDN82BQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416070753&sr=8-1&keywords=kubrick+2001+taschen
   
   http://www.amazon.co.uk/catalogue-accompanying-exhibition-organised-Filmmuseum/dp/388799079X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416071201&sr=1-2&keywords=stanley+kubrick+catalogue
   
   
3. more great stuff:
   
   http://www.spacearchitect.org/pubs/AIAA-2010-6109.pdf
   
   http://www.amazon.co.uk/Projecting-Tomorrow-Science-Fiction-Popular/dp/1780764103/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1416070674&sr=8-16&keywords=kubrick+archive
   
   http://www.amazon.co.uk/Well-Meet-Again-Musical-Stanley/dp/0199767661/ref=sr_1_19?ie=UTF8&qid=1416070702&sr=8-19&keywords=kubrick+archive
   
   http://www.amazon.co.uk/Music-Sound-Filmmakers-Cinema-Routledge/dp/0415898943/ref=sr_1_26?ie=UTF8&qid=1416070702&sr=8-26&keywords=kubrick+archive
   
   http://www.equinoxpub.com/journals/index.php/JFM/article/view/10726
   
   EDIT: three more, forthcoming:
   
   http://www.amazon.co.uk/Making-Stanley-Kubricks-Barry-Lyndon/dp/1441198075/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1416070674&sr=8-6&keywords=kubrick+archive
   
   http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-16352-1/plastic-reality
   
   http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stanley-Kubrick-Perspectives-Tatjana-Ljujic/dp/1908966424/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416071138&sr=1-1&keywords=stanley+kubrick+perspectives

Perhaps you don't know, but Miyazaki has written two books on exactly what you're asking about. Those would be a great place to start when researching Ghibli and Miyazaki's style.

Starting Point (1979-1996)

Turning Point (1997-2008)

I haven't read the second one, because it doesn't release in English for a few weeks, but I have read the first one. It would definitely help with any paper you would want to write on Ghibli/Miyazaki. I'll answer your questions myself in a different post, once I ponder my answers a bit.

The Kid Stays in the Picture Saw the documentary and liked it. Haven't read the book.
The Man Who Heard Voices If you're a fan of Shyamalan, you may like it.
If you saw Natural Born Killers then read Killer Instinct. A great book by the producer Jane Hamsher.
While obtaining Amazon links I came across these titles, which I haven't read. You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again and Easy Riders, Raging Bulls.

If you want fiction with a 'behind the scenes feel' I rec Time on My Hands and Wild Horses

edit: putting John Cater on my goodreads To Read list, thanks.

Not so much an academic book, but stunning to look at-

http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-Kubrick-Archives-Alison-Castle/dp/3836508893/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312966128&sr=1-1

Got it for Christmas a few years ago. Beautiful book.

If you are a fan of Wes Anderson this one is pretty great.

Here's a great series about all the Wes Anderson movies up to Moonrise Kingdom based on the book by Matt Zoller Seitz. I really love these videos and go back to re-watch them all the time.

The Wes Anderson Collection:

Chapter 1: Bottle Rocket

Chapter 2: Rushmore

Chapter 3: The Royal Tenenbaums

Chapter 4: The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

Chapter 5: The Darjeeling Limited

Chapter 6: Fantastic Mr. Fox

Chapter 7: Moonrise Kingdom

Kurosawa's book (http://www.amazon.com/Something-Like-Autobiography-Akira-Kurosawa/dp/0394714393) is pretty good. Scorsese by Ebert (http://www.amazon.com/Scorsese-Ebert-Roger/dp/0226182037) is pretty damn good.

When he was in college, Wes Anderson made a documentary.

From a '97 Variety article:

>[Anderson and Owen Wilson] made their first film together in college after getting into a dispute with the landlord of the house they were renting.

>“We stopped paying rent and ended up moving out of the house in the middle of the night because he wouldn’t do repairs on the windows,” Anderson recalls. “We ended up resolving the conflict by making a 20-minute documentary about him. It was called ‘Karl Hendler Properties,’ which was the name of his company.” The $350 budget for the film was provided by Hendler.

That name, Karl Hendler, already sounds like a Anderson character. I could imagine Anderson being very good at taking a random "ordinary" person and examining their quirks and character in a documentary, just sort of letting them talk about their life and going about their day.

I also recall that the scene in "Bottle Rocket" where they do a "test" break-in at Anthony's house was inspired by their college living situation (apparently, the landlord wouldn't fix the wondows so Anderson and Wilson staged a break in to try and convince him to fix it).

Anderson also talks about the documentary briefly in that "Wes Anderson Collection" book:

>There was a public-access station in Houston, and I got to use their equipment. I made a documentary about my landlord Karl Hendler. I made it on commission from him in order to pay him some debts I owed him, but he didn’t like it.

>He didn’t like the documentary?

>No, but he was up-front about it. I don’t think he was mad. He just didn’t think it was going to be helpful to him.

>Do you still have it?

>I’m sure it’s somewhere, but I don’t currently have access to it.

Crazy to think that access to camera/editing equipment used to be so damn hard. Wes Anderson had to borrow from a Public Access station. Unless you went to film school, it'd be hard to get film shot/developed (and before digital video, no one would take something shot on VHS seriously). Nowadays, you could make a feature film with your smartphone, but back in the '80s/'90s, it was only really determined people who could dabble in filmmaking.

If he doesn't like Wacom, I'm guessing he is one designer that loves the artcraft of something material and not digital.

Books! Hardcover offcourse.
http://www.amazon.com/Saul-Bass-Life-Film-Design/dp/1856697525
http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-Kubrick-Archives-Alison-Castle/dp/3836508893

or other special books of people he likes.

yea, but the amount of referential/contextual humor in that movie basically requires an alien species to have already had a k-12 education on human culture. The Big Lebowski would definitely have to be a University or Masters program class on human humor and interaction.

I LOVE the Fantastic Mr. Fox release but I'm kind of irked it doesn't fit next to the others as it's in this nice thick cardboard casing.

BUT it goes well with this book I picked up, and then this one that starts it off!

They didn't recommend any additional reading this episode for Martin Scorsese.

I'd recommend "Scorsese by Ebert" by Roger Ebert. It's not exactly a biography, but it's an excellent recap of his career.

> https://www.amazon.com/Terrence-Malick-Rehearsing-Carlo-Hintermann/dp/0571234569/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1486820563&sr=8-1

That book sounds very interesting. Does it elaborate much on Malick's 20 year gap between Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line? I always wondered why it took so long for Malick to make another film. I know he spent a lot of his time in France, worked on numerous screenplays and didn't completely isolate himself from the business, but it still fascinates me.

Any new Malick film is an event in cinema. I'm looking forward to it, for sure.

By the way, my wife got me this book on Malick for Christmas. I'm reading it now and it's really good so far. In typical Malick fashion, it's not a traditional biography, but it's told in a series of interview excerpts from his collaborators. Really well done.

https://www.amazon.com/Terrence-Malick-Rehearsing-Carlo-Hintermann/dp/0571234569/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1486820563&sr=8-1

Sometimes called a director's notebook:

Google Image Search

Interesting--searching "director's notebook" or "director's notebooks" came up nearly empty-- the magic search string is "directors notebook" (no apostrophe.)

Edit: I realize a lot of these are for Twilight. If you dig deeper down the page there are a few others. Blue -ray DVD's sometimes have a section about the director's notebook.

Edit #2: More here

I'll add more as I find it. Good question.

Coppola's notebook for the Godfather-- YT link

A Page from Coppola's notebook (previously on Reddit)

Good Interview where Coppola gives some insight into his director's notebook


Guillermo del Toro's (Hellboy director) gives insight in this book -- Amazon link with 11 preview images-- some from his director's notebook

Excerpts from director's notebook --Pan's Labyrinth

https://www.amazon.com/Anderson-Collection-Matt-Zoller-Seitz/dp/081099741X

might I recommend this then, it's written by a great critic.

Has anyone at all read Myazaki's book starting point? You should. He elaborately explains his views on a very wide variety of topics in there, and it's a great read.

Spoiler: He does have the opinion that is pictured in the comic.

Check out this and this book if you want to know more about his influences. He talks about them at great length.

Usin the green mod hat just to highlight this comment more.

Book, for reference. I own one :)

Highly recommend the [Cabinet of Curiosities] (https://www.amazon.com/Guillermo-del-Toro-Cabinet-Curiosities/dp/0062082841/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1504235597&sr=8-1&keywords=Guillermo+del+Toro+Cabinet+of+Curiosities) book of his works if you're a fan of his. Shows quite a fair few photos of the manor along with his artwork.

He's got this freaky life size realistic wax figure of H.P Lovecraft just hanging out in the library, the manor must be nuts.

I think overall this one by Vincent LoBrutto is your best bet

Starting Point <= Link to Amazon

it's a fucking good book. for professionals. not fans.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Teach-Improvised-Comedy-Improvisors-ebook/dp/B01N3U3145/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1542219323&sr=1-2&keywords=improv+comedy+teach

​

Not improvised Shakespeare per se but the author notes that he's done work for improvised Shakespeare like learning how to "quibble". Might provide some approaches.

it came out today! looks like it's already on back order through amazon though.

>This is a sincere question.

Thank you for posing it.

>If Kubrick was such a box office mojo as your comment above suggested.

I wish I could expand on and support the statement you believe I suggested. Unfortunately, the information in my post above (how Kubrick planned his limited releases) is all I have to go on right now. (There are a ton of technical-related distribution decisions I could get into though like his choice to use mono sound).

I've read Stanley Kubrick: A Biography, The Making of Kubrick's 2001, and most of the interviews he's done, but very little is said about the numbers. Just before your comment, I ordered a copy of The Stanley Kubrick Archives, because I wanted to learn more. Wikipedia cites this book as a source for some of its budget / box office numbers, so I'm hopeful it will shed some light on this topic.

I don't think The Shining was a disaster. I don't believe the facts support calling it a disaster. I don't know enough about Full Metal Jacket to make the same argument.

>How is it that it only made 46 million?

I don't know.

>Isn't that pretty bad considering the budget was 30 million?

It looks better put into perspective, but it's certainly not great. $46 million puts it at rank #23 out of 238 theatrically released films in 1987. The numbers don't suggest to me that it was marketed poorly. Maybe it was, but maybe the film simply cost too much. I don't really know.

>And that's not factoring in what they (or Kubrick, as your comment suggests) spent on market. Or knew how to spend on marketing, so to speak.

There is a Kubrick interview where he goes into hollywood's tendency to overspend, stating that some films needed to gross 5x their production budget just to make a profit (his tone seemed to indicate he rejected this practice). I assume the limited release strategy was a way of reducing the P&A costs. Reducing the number of theaters a film plays in reduces the costs of both prints and advertising (less markets to advertise in). If the film is good enough, and plays long enough, word of mouth can take a small P&A budget very far. Unfortunately, it looks like FMJ had a sharp decline in theatre average and didn't play for very long so it must not have worked out. I don't know what the P&A budget was on FMJ, but wish I did.

I read this one in film school and really liked it.

Quotes from the book 'The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale' Which M Night commissioned while he was making Lady in the Water.


"If Lady in the Water came together, it would be like Dylan and Clapton and Springsteen and Eminem and Kanye West and Miles Davis and Bonnie Raitt and Joan Armatrading and Jerry Garcia and every musician you've ever loved joining George Harrison and belting out the opening chord of 'A Hard Day's Night' at the same time."


"If you're a Bob Dylan, a Michael Jordan, a Walt Disney - if you're M. Night Shyamalan -"


[on demanding execs read his scripts on their days off] "[Shyamalan] was comfortable getting in the middle of people's weekend. He felt that the reading of his script should not be considered work. It should add to the weekend's pleasure."



Yeah he's an arrogant douche.

Amazon currently lists the Taschen book - pre-ordered - at $61.00.

The description suggests it's a new edition. Curious.

Stanley Kubrick: New perspectives might interest you.

https://www.amazon.com/Stanley-Kubrick-Perspectives-Tatjana-Ljujic/dp/1908966424

I would think some of these will end up in this - I've got mine pre-ordered :)

I highly recommend getting this. And NOT the Kindle version

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0062082841?pc_redir=1407738072&robot_redir=1

Del Toro put this out in 2013. His sketches are phenomenal and it's interesting seeing the process that goes into his projects.

He literally wrote a book on his inspiration for his characters and never mentioned this.

> The idea in ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ was it was going to represent the church, [so] I thought it would be powerful to use the hands with stigmata and then you put eyes on it. But although I had the idea and knew how it was going to operate, when we saw it on the set with the makeup on actor Doug Jones, everybody froze and we went, ‘Oh my God, this is amazing.’

Those dumb fucking people finding symbolism where there is none by analyzing the art are annoying enough. Now we have artists retroactively creating symbolism to circle jerk with their npc friends.

I wonder what his woke symbolism for the harbinger of doom being female is.

Here you go. It's a huge book detailing the project, with the screenplay and other production notes.

I'd start with coffee table books. That's the closest I can think of.

I'm a fan of this beauty.

Whatever you end up doing, I would recommend the book Starting Point which has a whole lot of Miyazaki interviews and writings relating to his work. It's a great book to read to get insight into his motivations and ideals. Perhaps look into the absence of villains within his work. The motivations for the antagonists are a lot more complex than those found in other animated films. Everyone has an agenda and it is most often not simply because they are teh-evil-dude-dat-wants-to-rule-da-world you find so often in Disney.

Stanley Kubrick - LoBrutto

The Stanley Kubrick Archives - TASCHEN

KUBRICK - Ciment

Kubrick - Baxter

A Life In Pictures

Kubrick: Herr

It's fucking enormous, BTW

This one is a bit more economically viable.

You should check this and this out.

https://www.amazon.com/Criterion-Designs-Collection/dp/160465936X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1500586225&sr=8-1&keywords=criterion+designs

https://www.amazon.com/Stanley-Kubrick-Archives-Alison-Castle/dp/3836508893/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1500586243&sr=8-8&keywords=kubrick+book

https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Heard-Voices-Shyamalan/dp/1592402135

https://www.amazon.com/Anderson-Collection-Matt-Zoller-Seitz/dp/081099741X

http://www.amazon.com/Guillermo-del-Toro-Cabinet-Curiosities/dp/0062082841/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413561388&sr=8-1&keywords=del+toro

http://www.amazon.com/Guillermo-del-Toro-Cabinet-Curiosities/dp/0062082841

https://www.amazon.com/Anderson-Collection-Matt-Zoller-Seitz/dp/081099741X

Cars

Photography

Comic Books 1, 2

Apple

LEGO's

American Football

PostSecret

Video Games

Vinyl

Warhol

Outdoors

Star Wars

Motorcycles

The Dark Knight

Paris

Interior Design

World Atlas

Banksy

Wes Anderson

Tribal Cultures

Playboy

Girls

Libraries

The Cosmos

The Beetles

Travel

Preppy

Steve McQueen

The Moon

Is it this one?

I picked up the Tachen book on Kubricks Napoleon film that never got made and the amount of research is incredible, and leaves you wishing the period was filmed and understood with as much appreciation by other directors. I figured John Adams got quite a bit wrong (being Irish-Canadian I'm not great on that period from an American perspective) but i suppose in the service of plot & condensing the story they had to make sacrifices.

There's a book all about it. "The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale"

The Napoleon book was re-released at a lower price point:

http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-Kubricks-Napoleon-Greatest-Movie/dp/3836523353

Instead of multiple small books inside one box, everything is combined into one volume.

Starting Point 1979-1996

Turning Point 1997-2008

There's no third book unfortunately. I don't know if that means that his notes for the Wind Rises are too lacking or classified, or whether the notes for his final films will be published once he passes away.

No problem, this is the one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081099741X/