This book collects probing interviews that the author has conducted with twelve major film directors over several decades. At a time when film scholarship has become entangled in its own pseudo-scientific discourse, this study goes instead directly to the moviemakers themselves with questions about how they work, the meanings of their movies, and the relationship of their pictures to other directors' films as well as to the other arts. The ultimate aim of these interviews, then, is to convey how the best film artists use the resources of their medium to pursue complex, significant humanistic goals. This collection, moreover, is international in scope, not limited to a single country or continent. Represented here are directors from Italy, France, Belgium, England, Iran, China, India, and Japan; and featured in this volume are the final interviews given by Francois Truffaut and Eric Rohmer before their deaths.