Eye on the World: Coversations with International Filmmakers

Stone, former film critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, reprints interviews she conducted with 220 filmmakers from 40 countries in this hefty volume that will be a valuable resource for cineasts and film journalists alike. Although most of the articles, organized alphabetically by country, appeared in the Chronicle from the mid-1960s to the mid-'90s, they are nonetheless informative. Giants such as Bunuel, Fellini, Kurosawa, Goddard and Coppola appear alongside the obscure. Despite the book's breadth, significant omissions include Bergman, Lean, Hitchcock and Welles. Stone notes that she'd rather talk with filmmakers than review their movies, and indeed there is little emphasis on the process of filmmaking or individual films unless it reveals something about the person. She's sympathetic to her subjects; a good listener, she gets them to open up on a variety of topics seemingly without injecting her own opinions. Yet politics of the directors' countries and the impact on the directors' films and their lives are clearly her paramount concern, especially but not exclusively in discussions with African, Asian and South American directors. Interviews with Europeans and Americans, on the other hand, tend to focus more on the artistic arcs of careers. Photos not seen by PW. (June)