INTERVIEWS WITH FILM DIRECTORS

Sarris, the entrepreneur of nouveau vague film criticism, has brought together interviews with forty of the outstanding and/or most prolific film directors. There is no particularly cohesive theme since obviously in order to reach the fine round figure of forty, Sarris has had to poke in some pretty musty closets for material. Therefore you have a disparity between the perceptive conversations with Antonioni, Bergman, Fellini and a glib speech made back in '55 by von Stroheim at a preview of his The Merry Widow. Mr. Sarris, noted for his lengthy, discursive style, keeps himself reasonably in check in his prefaces to each interview, subjectively reviewing the subject in terms of style, point-of-view, etc. For the growing number of fans to whom movie-making has become the new art form. Directors include: Chaplin, Cukor, Ford, Goddard, Hawks, Hitchcock, Huston, Renoir, Preminger, Rossellini, Sternberg, Truffaut and Welles.