In late 1914, Charlie Chaplin's name first began appearing on marquees. By the end of the following year, moviegoers couldn't get enough of him and his iconic persona, the Little Tramp. Perpetually outfitted with baggy pants, a limp cane, and a dusty bowler hat, the character became so beloved that Chaplin was mobbed by fans, journalists, and critics at every turn.

Although he never particularly liked giving interviews, he accepted the demands of his stardom, giving detailed responses about his methods of making movies. He quickly progressed from making two-reel shorts to feature-length...

Sidney Lumet (b. 1924) is considered one of the most gifted and socially conscious American filmmakers of his generation. His best-known movies--including Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, The Verdict, 12 Angry Men, and Network--have garnered him an Honorary Academy Award in 2005, multiple Oscar nominations for Best Director, the D. W. Griffith Award for Lifetime Achievement, and numerous other tributes.

This book features over twenty interviews with the director, including an interview conducted by the editor for this volume. One of the few mainstream...

Artisan, entrepreneur, and impresario, British filmmaker Ridley Scott accepts the profit motive as the only way to thrive in an industry where there is little patience for artistic flourishes or overblown expenses. Yet, while he may pay lip service to the free enterprise system, he is an unapologetic auteur, committed to using every element of film-from evocative lighting to digital composition-to overwhelm our senses and redefine how we perceive the future (Alien, Blade Runner), the past (1492: The Conquest of Paradise, Gladiator), and the present (Thelma &...

Starting his career as an animator for Disney, Tim Burton made his feature film directorial debut with the visually dazzling, low-budget Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. When it became a surprise blockbuster, studios began to trust him with larger budgets and the whims of his expansive imagination. Mixing gothic horror, black comedy, and oddball whimsy, Burton's movies veer from childlike enchantment to morbid melancholy, often with the same frame.

His beautifully designed and highly stylized films-including Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, Big Fish,...

Director John Woo (b. 1946) reinvented the modern action movie and helped open the door for Asian filmmakers to the Western world. His hyper-violent, highly choreographed style made him a box office powerhouse, a respected auteur, and a revered figure among fellow directors.

First discovered by Western audiences through his Hong Kong films The Killer and Hard Boiled, Woo introduced the world to a new brand of psychologically frenzied action film. After coming to the United States in the early 1990s, Woo produced a trilogy of hard-charging action films--Broken...

Woody Allen (b. 1935) is one of America's most idiosyncratic filmmakers, with an unparalleled output of nearly one film every year for over three decades. His movies are filled with rapid-fire one-liners, neurotic characters, anguished relationships, and old-time jazz music. Allen's vision of New York--whether in comedies or dramas--has shaped our perception of the city more than any other modern filmmaker. -On the screen, - John Lahr wrote in the New Yorker in 1996, -Allen is a loser who makes much of his inadequacy; off-screen, he has created over the years the most wide-ranging oeuvre...

Roman Polanski (b. 1933) arrived on the international scene in 1962 with his first feature film, Knife in the Water, and his face would be on the cover of Time magazine by the end of that year. His vibrant, disturbing, and often violent films--including the psychological thriller Rosemary's Baby, the film noir classic Chinatown, and the somber Holocaust drama The Pianist--have entertained and sometimes infuriated audiences. Stylistically unsettling and thematically varied, Polanski's films have established him as one of the most talented and controversial...

Liv Ullmann (b. 1938) has played many roles over the course of her long life: actress, mother, activist, author, and director. Her lead performances in such Ingmar Bergman classics as Persona, Scenes from a Marriage, and Cries and Whispers kept her in close proximity to crafts involved in screenwriting, film direction, and production. In 1992, Ullmann directed her first film Sofie and, with the quick succession of such recent masterpieces as Private Confessions, Kristin Lavransdatter, and Faithless, Ullmann has emerged as one of the most...

Howard Hawks (1896-1977) is one of America's great film directors. During a career that spanned fifty years and produced more than forty films, this writer, producer, and director made highly successful movies and managed to maintain remarkable artistic control during a time when studio moguls usually ruled. Hawks conquered virtually every genre, including action/adventure, comedy, western, film noir, gangster, science fiction, and musical films.

The remarkable diversity of his work may have kept Hawks from being as easily recognized as his contemporaries Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford....

Joel and Ethan Coen (b. 1954, 1957) started their careers in obscurity on a shoestring budget cajoled from family and friends in Minneapolis. Working entirely outside the studio system, the Coen brothers scored an unlikely first success in 1984 with their postmodern noir film Blood Simple. Two decades and nearly a dozen movies later, the Coens are now among the best-known writer/directors in Hollywood, turning out major studio releases featuring such stars as George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Tom Hanks.

The Coens' films all share a distinctive, quirky ambience that...