Film directors

Film directors

The director of cinema, also called director, controls all the stages of the realization of a film.

THE WORK OF THE DIRECTOR

The director's work begins well before the shooting, with the development of the scenario and its division into shots, but also with the location of the sets, the choice of actors (the cast) and that of its collaborators. During the shooting, the director controls each shot of each scene. After filming, he supervises the editing, which is a particularly important step: it is at this point that a succession of raw images becomes a film in its own right.

Artist, "boss", team leader, creator, manager and technician, the director of fiction films for cinema is a real "conductor". He leads the technical team: he needs technical skills (especially on everything related to the frame, light, and cameras). He directs and stages the actors: he plunges them into a universe he himself imagined and transmits his vision. This task also requires special skills and human qualities (such as listening and dialogue, being patient and diplomatic).

In general, directors started as interns before becoming second assistant director, then first assistant director. Many filmmakers have also started as screenwriters, editors or chief operators.

THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF FILM DIRECTORS

The role of the director and its importance in the process of making a film have evolved considerably since the beginnings of the history of cinema, according to the times and according to the country. European filmmakers do not usually work in the same way as American filmmakers, for example.

The European "auteur film"

At the end of the 1950s, in France and then all over Europe, the Nouvelle Vague disrupted the mechanisms of cinema's functioning: the director is now an "author", as we speak of the author in literature. The film belongs to him, from the writing of the screenplay to the production and editing.

The "European-style" director, therefore, controls every stage of the making of a film and is the only one to make decisions concerning his work.

The director in Hollywood: a technician at the service of producers

In Hollywood (in the United States), some filmmakers adhere to this "authors policy", but the others are less independent and are above all excellent technicians. They are hired by producers to put in pictures already written scripts. The actors and the technical team are imposed on them. The filmmakers must be able to manage huge teams (a bit like a big company), diplomatically manage stars at colossal salaries and satisfy the studio that produces the film.

It is, therefore, the producers who decide on the final form of the film, most often after having tested different formulas (different possible ends, for example): they favor what pleases the public the most, sometimes to the detriment of the artistic quality or the coherence of the work. The studio that produces the film imposes its choice, and the director rarely has a say.

Conflicts are also quite frequent between producers and directors on the final cut of the film. We sometimes see the release, long after the first version exploited in theaters, a revamped version called director's cut ("version of the director" in French): this is the version of the film that the director really wanted to do.