What and who is a director?

By definition, the director creatively translates the written word or script into specific sounds and images. He or she visualizes the script by giving abstract concepts concrete form. The director establishes a point of view on the action that helps to determine the selection of shots, camera placements and movements, and the staging of the action. 

The director is responsible for the dramatic structure, pace, and directional flow of the sounds and visual images. He or she must maintain viewer interest. The director works with the talent and crew, staging and plotting action, refining the master shooting script, supervising setups and rehearsals, as well as giving commands and suggestions throughout the recording and editing. Could a director be compared to an architect? A bricklayer laying brick upon brick? A conductor of a great orchestra? These descriptions fall short of the mark because what is being build is more volatile than stable, more fluid than secure. Director Roland Joffe (The Killing Fields) stated, “being a director is like playing on a multilayered, multidimensional chessboard, except that the chess pieces decide to move themselves.” Every director has his own vision of what they feel directing entails.  Roman Polanski finds that “First of all, directing is an idea that you have of a total flow of images that are going on, which are incidentally actors, words, and objects in space. It's an idea you have of yourself, like the idea you have of your own personality, which finds its best representation in the world in terms of specific flows of imaginary images. That's what directing is.” 

Polanski, director of films such as Rosemary's Baby and Chinatown, also stated that, “Directors are like generals, political dictators, aggressive people. You don’t have to be aggressive in a malevolent way, in a hostile, disagreeable way. Actually, you have to be the opposite way. You have to be a real leader. That’s to say that you have to let those who are doing their work do their work. You are a guide, and you’re a “tell-it-to”, and you’re a prophet, and you’re a boss, and you’re a slave, and, in the end, it’s your fault. And everyone in the film is always grateful if you tell them what to do.” Obviously, to be a director, you have to take on several different roles depending on the particular situation at hand. 

Entering the business

Whether it is intentional or by accident, there is probably as many ways to enter the business of filmmaking as there are filmmakers. Some directors, such as Paul Mazursky (Next Stop, Greenwich Village) and Woody Allen(Annie Hall, Manhattan Murder Mystery) started out as comedians and then actors. Eventually this led them both to screenwriting and finally directing. 

Allan Dwan (The Iron Mask, The Three Musketeers) planned to be an electrical engineer. Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction) worked in a video rental store. Louis Malle (French films, India) and Irvin Kershner (The Hoodlum Priest, A Fine Madness) began by making documentaries.  There are those however, that knew from the beginning that directing was what they were going to do. Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show, What’s Up Doc?) stated, “I always considered myself a director who was sort of making a living writing about pictures, not the other way around. In other words, I always wanted to direct films, even when I didn’t know it.” Stephen Spielberg(E.T., Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List) grew up directing his siblings in the family room of his house, then after sneaking on to a lot at Universal Studios, he set up an office and there began his professional career. Oliver Stone(Platoon, Wall Street) and Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Goodfellas) both attended film school on their way down the director’s path.