Making Movies by Sidney Lumet

On Directing Film by David Mamet

Rebel Without a Crew: Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker with $7,000 Became a Ho
llywood Player by Robert Rodriguez
Directing 101 by Ernest Pintoff
Direct Your Own Damn Movie! by Lloyd Kaufman
Directors Tell the Story: Master the Craft of Television and Film Directing
by Bethany Rooney & Mary Lou Belli
How Not to Make a Short Film: Secrets from a Sundance Programmer by Roberta
Marie Munroe
The Visual Story: Creating the Visual Structure of Film, TV and Digital Medi
a by Bruce Block
Film Directing Shot by Shot: Visualizing from Concept to Screen by Steven Ka
tz
On Directing by Harold Clurman
I'm sure I am leaving some out, either forgetting or not being aware of them. Al
so, a couple of my suggestions are books about stage and theater directing, but
their insights into space and working with actors and other things are very exce
llent insights and information for directing in general, and I personally tend t
o think it's always helpful to get a view of an art form and/or craft from diffe
rent perspectives and in different applications. It helps hone skill and think o
utside the box better.
Written 5 Oct, 2011. 5,343 views. Asked to answer by Adam Mordecai.
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Neal EdelsteinNeal Edelstein, Movie Producer/Director (Haunting Mel... (more)
8 upvotes by Marc Bodnick, Adam Mordecai, Du Hoang, Kris Haamer, (more)
Some of these books are specifically about technique, and some are not. The ones
that are not give you a rounded perspective about how the directors approach th
e process and what shaped them as artists.
On Film Making by Alexander MacKendrick
Something Like An Autobiography by Akira Kurosawa
A Talent For Trouble (William Wyler) by Jan Herman
Picture by Lillian Ross
Conversations With Wilder by Cameron Crowe
My Last Breath by Luis Bunuel
Making Movies by Sidney Lumet
Written 6 Oct, 2011. 2,245 views.
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Adam MordecaiAdam Mordecai, Movie
2 upvotes by Mark Hughes and Marc
Check out Rebel Without a Crew by
Written 5 Oct, 2011. 1,466 views.
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Asked to answer by Adam Mordecai.

junkie
Bodnick
Robert Rodriguez (director). It's invaluable.

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Jim MullerJim Muller
1 upvote by Mark Hughes
My favorite books about filmmaking are the ones that are very much about techni
que, and as it turns out some of the most technique-oriented are for department
heads, rather than for the director. Given that, my favorites:
Woody Allen on Woody Allen: In Conversation with Stig Bjorkman. Craft-orien
ted interviews. It contains, for example, great discussions of how Allen shoots
in long takes, and of the way Husbands and Wives was constructed (no blocking,
no careful lighting, no avoidance of jump cuts).
Conversations with Woody Allen by Eric Lax. More craft-oriented interviews
with Allen conducted over 30+ years. The parts about editing, music, and the di
recting of actors are pretty satisfying.
Hitchcock by Truffaut. Hitch talks about what worked and what didn't.
In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch, who talks about editing in great det
ail.
FIlm Lighting by Kris Malkiewicz. Works through the technical details of wh
at cameramen and gaffers do. Lots of technical detail, much of it in the form o
f lengthy quotes from about a dozen cameramen (Wexler, Zsigmond, Cronenweth, ...
).
The Writer's Journey by Chris Vogler, which is about story structure
Myth and the Movies by Stuart Voytilla, which is also about story structure.
Grammar of the Film Language by Daniel Arijon. If you read this, you don't need
anything else (or film school, for that matter!)