The Cineaste Interviews
On the Art and Politics of the Cinema
The outstanding value of these intensely serious, hardhitting encounters is in their total avoidance of the self-serving blandness, narcissistic superficiality, and most importantly, fraudulent objectivity of what passes for interviews in main-line film magazines. Here the stress is where it must be: on the social uses and misuses of film, the creation of and control of culture, the victories and brutal constraints placed on the cry for human freedom.
Amos Vogel, Founder, New York Film Festival
Cineaste, America’s leading magazine on the art and politics of the cinema, has become known for its in-depth interviews with filmmakers and film critics of international stature. The best of these interviews are now collected in this volume.
The interviews: Constantin Costa-Gavras, Glauber Rocha, Miguel Littin, Bernardo Bertolucci, Ousmane Sembene, Elio Petri, Dusan Makavejev; Gillo Pontecorvo; Alain Tanner, Jane Fonda, Francesco Rosi, Lina Wertmuller, Roberto Rossellini, Tomas Gutierrez Alea, Gordon Parks, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, John Howard Lawson, Paul Schrader, Agnes Varda, Bertrand Tavernier, Andrew Sarris, Bruce Gilbert, Jorge Semprun, Vincent Canby, John Berger, Andrzej Wajda, John Sayles, Krzysztof Zanussi, Molly Haskell, Budd Schulberg, Satyajit Ray.
The unique value of these interviews will be the comments by the filmmakers on the crucial artistic and political decisions confronted in the making of their films, many of which have become classics of their kind. The filmmakers and critics talk about their own development, films which influenced their work, and the continuing controversies and alternative approaches in filmmaking. They take on their critics and their own previous positions with a clarity and forcefulness to be expected from some of the leading practitioners of their art.
The interviews are introduced with a foreword by Roger Ebert, commentator and critic for the Chicago Sun-Times. Mr. Ebert discusses the relation of art and politics and some of the common perspectives which unite filmmakers of different cultures and of diverse artistic and political temperaments.
Among the subjects of these wide-ranging talks are: the choice between popular and experimental forms of narrative; the filmmaker's responsibility to society; blacks and women in the movies; the rise of third world filmmaking; Hollywood’s left and progressives; the conditions of filmmaking in different societies; the challenges of independent production; different forms of censorship, from the U.S. to Poland; trends in criticism and auteur theory to feminism; and the power of the reviewer.
An invaluable compendium of conversations, many of them provocative, involving the great filmmakers of contemporary cinema.
International Film Guide
A fascinating look at the not always easy marriage of art and politics.
Library Journal
The outstanding value of these intensely serious, hardhitting encounters is in their total avoidance of the self-serving blandness, narcissistic superficiality, and most importantly, fraudulent objectivity of what passes for interviews in main-line film magazines. Here the stress is where it must be: on the social uses and misuses of film, the creation of and control of culture, the victories and brutal constraints placed on the cry for human freedom.
Amos Vogel, Founder, New York Film Festival
The Cineaste Interviews are among the best source documents I know of in film. Pithy information direct from the filmmakers. Invaluable.
James Monaco, author of American Film Now
Cineaste has advanced the art and the politics of the interview beyond any film journal. These interviews form an essential record of the art and the politics of filmmaking in our time
Robert Sklar, author of Movie Made America