Hi,

I think that the earlier interviews with Orson Welles were more interesting, but he was not always the best person to ask these things ... he learned early on in radio that the best thing to do is ... to say nothing, or change the subject. The book "This is Orson Welles" maybe the better one all around, but I have not read it.

I'll have to look, but I really can't remember reading a lot about WOTW or CK from him.

Sam Peckinpah is another story. I think he was affected by the fame of "The Wild Bunch", and all of a sudden it was like he had to do some violent stuff just to get a film made, and by the time SD came out, I think that everyone expected him to have fine tuned it into slick violence on the screen ... and I immediately fell out and that was that. I am not a fan of SD and didn't really like it, and I think that DH mailed in his words and "acting" ... which turned me off. He would be probably the better one to deliver some of the lines in the script but in the end, it was either that or the violence, and the violence in the words was worse for me.

There are some great stuff out there, that is very difficult reading because it is a lot, and it reaches into areas that are very tough to discuss in film, like ideas coming alive ... and I like some of them.

Godard on Godard

Gilliam on Gilliam

Almodovar on Almodovar

Cassavets on Cassavets

Altman on Altman

But there are some I wouldn't mind having ... Andrey Tarkovsky , Satyajit Ray, Charles Chaplin.

Most of these are known world wide, and I wish I could find a few more things that weren't so expensive ... like Truffaut on Hitchcock ... and books on Kurosawa and even Fellini. Bergman is well represented.

A few other books I liked ... Luis Bunuel short book is very good and valuable ... it really tells a sad story, and I wish there had been more to the book, but I think it was unfinished. Nicolas Roeg's book is nice, but he does not really talk about any of his films, and he steers clear of his ex-wife, which is sad, as there are some nice things that she did and did well.

Of all these, Cassavetes is probably the more interesting for me because he is different to the point of folks not enjoying his work at all ... but Tarkovsky is probably nice, but I'm not sure I want to go through another Andrei Rublev ... too long, or maybe I wasn't ready for it then!

Also of interest, but way out there ... more on Derek Jarman, Sally Potter and even Jane Campion would be nice ... for that matter, George Miller.

Sidebar:

"Godard on Godard" is used in many film classes on directors at the University level, and it is really difficult specially for today's viewers, since his mind jumps around so much that you end up wondering what he is saying ... but he does know his history of film better than anyone out there and then some, and when he makes fun of it, is usually subtle and weird at the same time, and even ... in the wrong place ... but I think that is intentional ... I like to look at Jean-Luc as the kid with a camera in his hands, and no one to stop him!

But it is fun to watch him tear down film conventions ... try the pendulum sequence and see if you like it ... but it makes so much sense ... it's sick how so many films have destroyed novels and points of view so fast and we don't even realize it!