DGA Magazine corralled a diverse group of Guild members to hear their thoughts on the one film (or films) that made them want to become a filmmaker and why.

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STACY PERALTA

For me it was Network and The Gods Must Be Crazy. I was running a skateboard company, and never dreamed of being a filmmaker. I didn't think I had the confidence or talent. Then Network came along and it dealt with something that was so real in society, and yet was so entertaining to watch. It was the first film I saw from Sidney Lumet, and I was inspired. What I loved about The Gods Must Be Crazy was that it had no production value whatsoever, and yet had this simple, and very poignant story. Both films just shocked me into the kinds of experiences that were possible when you go to the movies.

RODRIGO GARCIA

I was a cameraman before I was a director, so I was influenced by films that encouraged me to become a director. John Huston's The Dead, Nicholas Roeg's Don't Look Now and Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers all dealt with the condition of the individual. I wanted to become a director to glimpse the individual in mid-stride, in a crucial day, moment, and choice, and these films accomplished that in a powerful way. Of course, if you're talking about my childhood, there was only Mary Poppins. I've seen it a hundred times now that I have girls. Mary is still completely fascinating and sexy because she's secretive and says nothing about her past!

ARTHUR PENN

None! I really didn't want to become a filmmaker. It only happened because I was directing live television. After my discharge from the infantry in World War II, I got a job at NBC as a floor manager. Our templates were the theater. A Streetcar Named Desire was a breathtaking piece of work. Kazan was pretty damn good. My first film — The Left-Handed Gun with Paul Newman — was shot in 23 days. There was no time for inspiration. There have been many films I loved — I was stricken with Welles and Citizen Kane. But I never walked out of a theater saying, 'Gee, I want to do that.' I just made movies from instinct.

RAYMOND De FELITTA

Any film by Preston Sturges or the Marx Brothers continues to be my main inspiration for making movies. I also grew up loving jazz — I've played piano for a long time — and Fats Waller and Art Tatum were the two players I always thought, "If I could translate their music into film, I would be successful." I can't sit down to write a script without listening to Tatum or Waller or without watching Sturges or the Marx Brothers. For me, it's about coming back to the most basic things that inspire me, make me light of heart and want to create. I first saw those movies when I was 8 years old. It's been that way for 30 years and nothing has changed!

ALFONSO CUARÓN

There was no epiphany from one film. There were a few that stood out over the years. I was 8 when I saw The Bicycle Thief, and it was the first black-and-white film I had ever seen. It triggered my curiosity to start seeing European cinema. When I was 7, I saw The Making of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Hearing George Roy Hill talk about all the choices he made, I knew that directing movies was what I wanted to do. I remember seeing Death and Venice 40 times one year, and then switching my allegiance to Godard after seeing Masculine/Feminine! I knew early on that I was a nerd and that films were my refuge. Those first few minutes before the lights went off, and you're alone in the theater waiting, were really pleasurable. Whether it was Steve McQueen, the coolest guy in cinema, to Robert Altman's strange and wonderful Three Women, I saw hundreds of films before I ever picked up a camera. I believe I took something away from each one.

MARY LAMBERT

It wasn't a film at all. It was a painting. I was a senior at Rhode Island School of Design, studying painting. I went to Europe for the first time, to the Louvre. I was standing in front of The Coronation of Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David. It's a massive painting, about 7/8 scale life-size, with all these incredible characters — pageboys and doves, and the queen and Napoleon. It's massive. I stood in front of it for a very long time and had this revelation that the painting was about time, which has always fascinated me. I realized that you had to watch this painting like you would watch a film. There was an entire story unfolding in front of me, and it demanded that I watch it. Two things clicked in my mind. One: I would never be able to paint this well! And two: If this man were alive today, he'd be a filmmaker. I had been making little short films at RISD. But it wasn't with an eye toward becoming a director. They were more like expressionistic, conceptual art. But seeing The Coronation of Napoleon made me want to become a storyteller. Michelangelo, Vermeer, David — if these guys were alive today, they would all be filmmakers. So that's what I decided to do.

MARK PELLINGTON

Blue Velvet, The Vanishing (Dutch version) and Sweetie. All three made me feel very uncomfortable, and got under my skin in an emotional and visceral way. None of them were feel-good movies. But they all inspired me. I was making documentaries and music videos at the time, and had yet to make a feature. I had become very comfortable in non-narrative, collage-type filmmaking, and these films kicked me in the ass to try a feature. They hit me in this psychosexual, creepy way — I walked out thinking, "If these are the feelings you can get in the cinema, then that's something to aspire to."

CHERYL DUNYE

David Holzman's Diary by Jim McBride and Masculine/Feminine by Godard. These films blurred the lines of truth and fiction, storytelling, character, and intimacy, which I've come to believe is the prime challenge in making movies — to connect people with images that push the boundaries of experience. I had graduated with a B.A. from Temple in Radio/Television/Film, and won a fellowship into an MFA program at Rutgers, when I first saw David Holzman's Diary. I was studying with painters and sculptors, and moving from a technical approach to a path of more thinking. I came at filmmaking from a different route, and these two films opened my mind to cinema's possibilities.

DAVID SIEGEL AND SCOTT MCGEHEE

David: The films that made the biggest impression on us were those of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Scott and I saw A Matter of Life and Death at the Castro, when we first started making short films, and it had a huge effect.

Scott: That's still my favorite.

David: Other films included I Know Where I'm Going, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes.

Scott: One thing that inspired us was how well they [Powell and Pressburger] worked together as a team. The Coen Brothers are also a good example. But as fledgling team directors, it was great to see films from out of our era that were so breathtaking and special.

David: We were overwhelmed by the ways they used cinematic style to tell their stories. In many movies today, the style seems half-considered. But with them, everything that went into the film stylistically — from the color to the architecture to the costumes — was considered toward the narrative end.

Scott: Their films are beautifully artificial and also directly emotional and engaging.

DAVID O. RUSSELL

Lots of films inspired me, but it would be more illustrative to name certain moments from films that moved me. Like Jane Fonda's sadness and honesty when she's talking to her shrink in Alan Pakula's Klute or at the end, when she moves out of her apartment to go live with Donald Sutherland, and it all feels openhearted and vulnerable, and the journey to get there wasn't false. Or the moment at the end of Sydney Pollack's Three Days of the Condor when Robert Redford looks back at Cliff Robertson and says, "They'll print it," meaning The New York Times will print the truth about oil politics, but you can tell Redford isn't sure they will, or if this is a world where truth still has a chance. Or the moment in Mike Nichol's The Graduate when Benjamin says to Elaine in a fast-food parking lot, after he's settled down from his manic avoidance, "such a waste. My whole life has been such a waste." I always need to be made to believe in movies again. What I find most energizing are films that dare in an alive, subversive way, without cliché, to embrace enthusiasm, passion, inspiration, friendship, and love.

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