Stephen Lowenstein: My First Movie: Twenty Celebrated Directors Talk About Their First Film

After British filmmaker Stephen Lowenstein finished his first short, The Key, he was so full of anxiety and adrenaline that he sought to commiserate with other members of the club whose ranks he'd just joined. Lowenstein interviewed 20 respected directors—Euro-film vets, indie neophytes, and Hollywood players—and compiled his Qs and their As into My First Movie, a thick volume of ruminations on the practical and philosophical struggles of the fledgling cinematic artist. Common threads emerge: From Pedro Almodóvar to Barry Levinson, nearly all the directors attest to the thrill of learning about camera placement and eye-lines on the fly, discovering which rules can be broken and which have been long established for good reason. Almost all of the interviewees also pine for the liberation of those days, when they could do what they wanted because they didn't know any better. And all of them, with the telling exception of Kevin Smith, speak of the mortifying experience of viewing their first rough cut and being certain that a whole year of planning, financing, shooting, and editing had been a waste of time. Lowenstein coaxes a few revelations from his colleagues: Mike Figgis dishes about the eccentric behavior of Stormy Monday stars Melanie Griffith and Tommy Lee Jones (as well as auditioners Christopher Walken and Harvey Keitel). The Coen Brothers insist that Blood Simple is "pretty damn bad." Anthony Minghella talks about how his rudimentary experiments with framing in Truly, Madly, Deeply paid off in the artful compositions of The Talented Mr. Ripley. Oliver Stone says the momentum of Salvador propelled him through the Oscar-winning Platoon and then eight more films before the critics "caught" and "hurt" him. Lowenstein's repetitive questioning makes My First Movie somewhat exhausting to read straight through, but moments of self-awareness and raw honesty reward the diligent. Otherwise, the book is the resource Lowenstein intended, a browseable compendium of anecdotes relating to the specific mixture of arrogance and self-doubt that drives a movie in and out of production.