Apprently novice filmmaker Angela Ismailos’ definition of a “Great Director” is one who’s willing to sit or walk with her while she lobs innocuous questions and gives herself lots of awed close-up reaction shots.
It’s not that Bernardo Bertolucci, David Lynch, Stephen Frears, Agnes Varda, Ken Loach, Liliana Cavani, Todd Haynes, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater and John Sayles are exactly slouches.
“As soon as you finish a film, people ask you to talk about it,” says Lynch, politely pointing out the folly of the project. “The film is the talking, the film is the thing.” The fact that Ismailos seems to thinks his fiasco “Inland Empire” is one of Lynch’s major works tells you a lot. It’s more interesting when the filmmakers talk about other directors. Haynes discusses the work of his idol, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and points out to Ismailos that he appears in Wim Wenders’ “Room 666” — a collection of director interviews that, unlike this one, doesn’t seem like a cross between a vanity project and DVD filler.