Episode list

The odd,enigmatic character of the Spanish director and his surrealistic films is explored by interviews with him in Toledo and with some of his collaborators over the years.

Five years after the explosion of the French New Wave onto French and international screens, doubts about the true impact of the movement have emerged. Producers Labarthe and Bazin assemble an intriguing round-table made up of Cinématheque Française director Henri Langlois, and filmmakers Alexandre Astruc, Pierre Kast, and Agnès Varda to discuss the past, present and future of the movement.

A number of surviving collaborators on two of Jean Vigo's films. "Zero For Conduct" and " L'Atalante," are interviewed about the making of these works and their historical context.

Collaborators of the late playwright, actor, and film director, as well as several scholars, are interviewed about the lasting importance of Guitry's work, which is illustrated by clips.

As befits the austerity of this director, for his first ever on camera interview, it is just Bresson and the filmmaker, with pronouncements on the difference between "le cinematographe" and "le Cinema, " and much information about the man's tastes in other arts such as painting, photography and music.

By the time the French tv series on great directors began,Stroheim was deceased so couldn't be part of a regular interview format.Nevertheless the filmmaker tries to unravel the enigmatic personality and separate the man from the myth.

Ten years after the release of the last Ophuls film,surviving collaborators gather in a circus setting inspired by that work (Lola Montes) and are interviewed about various aspects of his directorial approach.

"Celluloid and Marble" is based on Éric Rohmer's own articles published in "Cahiers du cinéma" discussing film in relation to the other arts, maintaining that, in an age of cultural self-consciousness, cinema was "the last refuge of poetry" - the only contemporary art form from which metaphor could still spring naturally and spontaneously.

John Ford is interviewed,sitting on a bed in his Hollywood home, with a cigar and a drink,by two journalists,and deflects a number of the questions about his life and films with a cranky humor,even occasionally trying to converse with the French interviewer in French.

"Wild Man Pasolini" intellectualizes in this TV portrait about not just film but also: politics, art, poetry, and philosophy.

Just retired from directing, Walsh recounts "the good old days" working with Griffith, his beginnings at Warners and his adventures with Bogart, Cooper, Flynn and Gable.

First part of an over four hour documentary for TV in which Rivette visited Renoir at his country place, lunched with him, and let him talk about his work, interspersed with extracts from some of his oeuvre.

After clips from the films on which director Jean Renoir and actor Michel Simon collaborated, the two are filmed seated at a convivial table, enjoying a jovial conversation about their work together and the topics of directing and acting.

Alone in a cinema, Renoir analyzes scenes from two of his films and discusses editing and other techniques of storytelling.

A one of a kind conversation between Lang and Godard, captured a year after the release of the film they had worked on together, Contempt.

One of the cinema's great raconteurs, Fuller here ranges over such topics as wartime combat, Communism, racism, and financial problems.

In an hour's chat with two French interviewers, Sternberg laments the failure of critics and the public to truly understand his work.

The French tv series captures Lewis before an audience of London film students.

The director is interviewed at his house in Hollywood in 1965 during the filming of "Faces," and then three years later in Paris after the movie has finally been finished and is awaiting distribution.

Seated by a swimming pool, the legendary Hollywood director discusses his influences and his work with performers in an interview for French television.

Though it focused on the titans of old Hollywood in its early days, this series made time for an occasional portrait of the New American Cinema such as this one of maverick female auteur Shirley Clarke.

A critical essay on Murnau's movie direction style, approaching his work indirectly, without showing excerpts from his films.

Melville is visited in the Paris studio he built in the mid 1950s and talks about his working strategies,and the filmmakers who have influenced him.

In an hour long interview for French television, the famed Hollywood choreographer and director discusses the technical challenges of his unique musical sequences.