David Thomson, author of “A Biographical Dictionary of Film,” is perhaps the most celebrated living film historian. And at age 80, he is still exploring and examining the cinematic landscape from every angle.
In his new book, “A Light in the Dark: A History of Movie Directors,” he features chapters on Orson Welles, Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock, bringing his personal tastes and sensibility to each of their careers. But he goes well beyond those obvious choices.
In his chapter on Jean-Luc Godard, he takes down David Lean several pegs, which is nothing compared to the way he devotes a chapter to eviscerating most of Quentin Tarantino’s work outside of “Pulp Fiction.” He also speculates on how the dazzling skill with which “The Godfather” was made actually makes people overlook the film’s content (which he feels glamorizes the mob mentality while completely sidelining women.)
Still, in a recent video interview, Thomson, 80, acknowledged that both space limitations and his age also played major roles in shaping the book. The interview was edited for length and clarity.
Q. The roster of legendary directors left out — Billy Wilder, Elia Kazan, Sidney Lumet, Francois Truffaut, John Cassavetes, the Coen brothers, even an animation director like Pete Docter — seems perhaps more impressive and eclectic than those included. How did you choose whom to put in or leave out?
Readers would be right to complain about certain people being omitted, like the ones you mentioned. The publisher was clear they wanted a book of a certain length, to sell at a certain price, and I had to face that reality.
I feel more than apologetic about the people who are not included. My plan was to begin with a series of self-contained essays about people and I chose a list of people who I felt had special careers that went over decades and represented a certain stage in the history of film and my thought was that as the book advanced closer to the modern age I would have chapters that would include more and more people.
I was trying to pick different ways individuals illustrate what a director can be. I woke up yesterday asking myself why isn’t Ridley Scott in the book — he’s a very competent director and has been for 40 years working in all manner of genres and he’s pretty consistently entertaining, but I have a director in the book, Stephen Frears, who fits that narrative.
Q. Nearly two-thirds of the book is about pre-1970s films and directors. And I saw a list you once made of your favorite films and it had only one American film made after 1941. Do you think you’re giving short shrift to the past fifty years?
You get past 25 and you’re really a stick in the mud, and the mud gets more clay-like and clingy and you fight it but it’s a tough fight. You get to a certain age where you’re loyal to the things you’ve loved in the past but I hope I’m open to new things.
I don’t believe that everything that happened long ago is better than what’s happening now. It’s true if I’m alone on a weekend with nothing to do I’m more likely to put on “The Shop Around the Corner” from 1940 than an interesting, challenging new film because I’ve got a certain degree of nostalgia. But I’m aware of the danger and I try to offset it and overcome it.
Q. While directors like Fritz Lang and Nicholas Ray get their own chapters, the more than half a dozen 1970s directors, including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg and Robert Altman are lumped into one chapter. Were you tempted to pick one, perhaps Scorsese as a representative of the era?
I tried to balance them and get enough attention on them. Scorsese is the most rawly talented filmmaker we’ve had in the last 50 years in America, but I’ve been asking for a long time why he keeps making films about male gangs. While “The Irishman” was disappointing, there was something very sad and insightful about the disapproval of the main character’s daughter that made me like it — it is almost an apology for Scorsese’ adoration of those men, like he’s standing back and trying to assess what they were about.
Q. The shortest chapter, by far, is on minority directors. You say you’re not bowled over by Spike Lee, but doesn’t the director of “Do the Right Thing” and “Malcolm X” warrant more than two pages?
I have complicated feelings about Spike Lee. He’s an erratic filmmaker: He’s sometimes amazing and sometimes heavy-handed. But without question, Spike Lee is one of the most important Americans of the past 50 years. It has to do with the way he has said, “This is me. This is what I’m going to do. Take me seriously.”
I don’t think he’s simply a filmmaker; he’s a force, a phenomenon. I think he’s one of the most interesting people making films.
Q. I hadn’t consciously realized before this book that I’d seen 10 Frears movies. What does that say about his career?
Film culture got into the habit of identifying films by their directors. The hero worship maybe meant taking directors more seriously then they entirely deserved. I’m very drawn to those directors who said, “I do a job and I hope I’ve gotten better” like Frears. I like people where you never know what they’re going to do next — they’re versatile and wide open, like Michael Curtiz and Otto Preminger and Sidney Lumet. People who teach filmmakers in colleges neglect the professionals like Frears.
Q. You say the luster of the director is fading, but don’t you think that 20 years from now you’ll be able to write a book about visionary and easily identifiable directors looking back on the careers of people like Bong Joon Ho, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Darren Aronofsky, Steven McQueen, Jordan Peele, Ava DuVernay, Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro González Iñárritu
The film director is becoming a little more like the novelist. There are still some big novelists but there are a lot of fantastic novelists who just sell a few thousand copies.
Q. In the book, you touch on television briefly and mention TV director Michelle MacLaren (“Breaking Bad,” “Game of Thrones”). There are also numerous former indie film directors like Hal Hartley, Allison Anders and John Dahl now doing episodic TV. Is it a step down of sorts?
I still think two people can take a three-page scene and the same actors and give you a very different effect. But I couldn’t tell you who directed which episodes of a show because there is a professional consistency to the shows — it’s not that they’re not directed, they’re very creative and exciting cinematically, but you don’t feel that’s what it is about the way we could with a Hitchcock sequence that was extraordinary genius of originality.
Q. Are TV showrunners the new auteurs?
Yes. I would say some series are at least as good as any theatrical movie I’ve seen in the last 20 years — “Breaking Bad” and “Babylon Berlin,” just to pick two, are major works, absolutely compelling and so satisfying. We feel the personality of the showrunner, of a writer who has taken charge of the operation, and that’s a very big change. I love the idea that a writer can have more power — we have neglected writing terribly.
