Curated playlist
Postmodernist filmmakers
- Martin ScorseseMartin Scorsese's love of movies began because asthma kept him out of games.
- Woody AllenWoody Allen failed a film production course at New York University, then went on to direct Annie Hall.
- 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.
- Wes AndersonWes Anderson has said his first ambition was to be a writer, not a director. He grew up making silent films.
- Christopher NolanChristopher Nolan has no smartphone and no email address. He hand-delivers his scripts to the actors he wants.
- Kevin SmithKevin Smith maxed out credit cards and sold his comic books to make Clerks. The film raised $27,575 and won at Sundance.
- Mel BrooksMel Brooks was 14 years old when he climbed onto a diving board at the Butler Lodge, a second-rate hotel in the Borscht Belt. He worked there as a pool-side tummler, an entertainer hired to keep the guests amused. On this day he wore a…
- Paul Thomas AndersonPaul Thomas Anderson, the American filmmaker known by his initials PTA, earned a C+ on his very first film school assignment. The task at New York University was simple: write a single page of screenplay. Anderson handed in a page from…
- James CameronJames Cameron dropped alone to the deepest point on Earth in 2012. He stayed more than three hours on the bottom.
- David FincherDirector David Fincher demanded 99 takes from Rooney Mara for a single scene in The Social Network.
- Robert RodriguezRobert Rodriguez paid for his first feature by joining medical testing studies. El Mariachi cost $7,000 in 1992.
- Hideaki AnnoHideaki Anno wrote his own experiences of depression into the characters of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
- Michel GondryMichel Gondry pioneered "bullet time" in a 1996 vodka ad. The effect was later adapted for The Matrix.
- Rian JohnsonRian Johnson shot his debut film, Brick, at his old high school. It cost roughly $450,000 and grossed nearly $4 million.
- Ridley ScottRidley Scott once ranked 31st out of 31 in his school class. He later kept that report on his office wall.
- Charlie KaufmanEvery company rejected Charlie Kaufman's script for Being John Malkovich. Spike Jonze later agreed to direct it.
- Rob ReinerRob Reiner, the American filmmaker, actor and political activist, once joked about how firmly a sitcom nickname had attached itself to him. "I could win the Nobel Prize and they'd write 'Meathead wins the Nobel Prize.'" The remark came…