78 Great Directors Who Shaped the History of Cinema: An Introduction

"When first we take an inter­est in movies, we must fig­ure out our own method of decid­ing what to watch next. The cen­tral fac­tor may be box office per­for­mance, the pres­ence of a favorite per­former, adher­ence to a favorite genre, or the use of a famil­iar sto­ry from oth­er media. Such paths through cin­e­ma can lead to enter­tain­ing view­ing expe­ri­ences, no doubt, but it's safe to say that very few movie-lovers become bona fide cinephiles with­out even­tu­al­ly switch­ing their alle­giance to direc­tors."

"For­mer­ly known as The Cin­e­ma Car­tog­ra­phy (and before that as Chan­nel Criswell), The House of Tab­u­la has pro­duced many video essays on film pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured on Open Cul­ture. More than a few close­ly exam­ine par­tic­u­lar direc­tors: Andrei Tarkovsky, Stan­ley Kubrick, David Lynch, and Quentin Taran­ti­no, to name just four that appear in The House of Tab­u­la's new three-and-a-half-hour video "The Mas­ters of Cin­e­ma.""

"A jour­ney through the evo­lu­tion of film as reflect­ed in the work of 78 dif­fer­ent direc­tors, it cov­ers Tarkovsky, Kubrick, Lynch, and Taran­ti­no in its lat­er chap­ters on "the Mod­ern Mas­ters" and "the New School." The ear­li­er chap­ters exam­ine pic­tures by every­one from Georges Méliès, Sergei Eisen­stein, D.W."

Initial choices about what to watch often follow box-office success, favorite performers, genres, or familiar stories. Many movie-lovers eventually deepen their interest by following directors, which can transform casual viewing into cinephilia. Historically, properly organized video stores arranged alphabetically by director served as gateways; today, online channels fulfill a similar role. The House of Tabula (formerly The Cinema Cartography and Channel Criswell) produces numerous video essays on film. The channel's three-and-a-half-hour program "The Masters of Cinema" surveys the evolution of film through 78 directors, from early pioneers like Georges Méliès and Sergei Eisenstein to modern figures such as Tarkovsky and Kubrick.

Read at Open Culture