Curated playlist
Directors of Palme d'Or winners
- Martin ScorseseMartin Scorsese's love of movies began because asthma kept him out of games.
- Orson WellesOrson Welles burned ten reels of his own Don Quixote film. He felt the 1969 Moon landings made its ending obsolete.
- Quentin TarantinoQuentin Tarantino turned down Speed and Men in Black to write Pulp Fiction in Amsterdam.
- David LynchDavid Lynch began as a painter who just wanted his canvases to move. That wish led him to film.
- Roman PolanskiRoman Polanski survived the Holocaust by pretending to be Catholic. As a boy in Poland, he memorized prayers to hide.
- William WylerDirector William Wyler once made Henry Fonda do forty takes of one scene. His only note was the word again.
- Terrence MalickAfter Days of Heaven, director Terrence Malick moved to Paris and stayed out of public view for roughly two decades.
- Francis Ford CoppolaMarlon Brando won the Godfather role only after a screen test and a reduced fee.
- Akira KurosawaRashomon won Venice's Golden Lion in 1951 after its own studio entered it reluctantly.
- Michelangelo AntonioniAfter a stroke took his speech, Michelangelo Antonioni kept directing films. He made Beyond the Clouds in 1995.
- David LeanFilm critics spent two hours tearing apart David Lean's Ryan's Daughter to his face at a New York lunch.
- Robert BressonRobert Bresson made only thirteen feature films, yet seven made a 2012 Sight and Sound list. No other director had more.
- Richard LesterRichard Lester started college at 15 to study psychology, not film. MTV later called him Father of the Music Video.