
Tarkovsky's account of his own filmmaking is genuinely difficult, but it offers a theory of the image — as a vessel of time rather than a carrier of information — that no other book on this list attempts. Reading it alongside Murch shows how differently two master editors can conceive of what a film is.
Chosen by shared topics, the entries that hold them, and the people who recommended both.
Goldman wrote Butch Cassidy, All the President's Men, and The Princess Bride, and this book is his frank account of what it is actually like to write for Hollywood. His central claim — that nobody knows anything — is an important corrective to every book on this list that treats filmmaking as a solved problem.
Recommended by: Tim Ferriss
How young directors and drugs remade Hollywood in the 1970s, from Easy Rider on.
How storyboards become shots, and how shots are built into film sequences.
Film editing explained: why cuts work when they follow the rhythm of thought.
How a film comes together, from the first script reading to the final mix.
Directing as finding the simplest images that carry the story.
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