Mackendrick on Film
Mackendrick on Film is an educational project constructed around British film director Alexander Mackendrick‘s legendary teachings on cinema, and takes as its starting point his book On Film-Making: An Introduction to the Craft of the Director, a 300-page collection of writings and sketches, edited by Paul Cronin with a foreword by Martin Scorsese.
The project is a three-day structured illustrated lecture that features never-before-seen footage of features footage of Mackendrick at work in the classrooms and studios of the California Institute of the Arts where, after retiring from the film industry in 1969 (article here about his career as a director), he taught film-making for nearly twenty-five years. It also includes new interviews with former students and colleagues, extracts from archive interviews with Mackendrick about the craft of film-making, rare photos, and a selection of his student handouts, storyboards and sketches.
Structured into nine parts, the project is based on Mackendrick’s book On Film-Making: An Introduction to the Craft of the Director and is designed to be a self-contained introduction to film-making. Constantly being re-worked, fine-tuned and augmented, Mackendrick on Film (flyer here) has been seen at colleges and festivals worldwide, including NYU, UCLA, USC, CalArts, the University of London and the Tribeca Film Festival, as well as the Directors Guild of Great Britain and the Binger Filmlab in Amsterdam. Mackendrick on Film is also screened regularly at The London Film School. A version has also been prepared for film festivals. Please note that DVDs are not currently available. Email for details.
2012 marks one hundred years since Mackendrick’s birth. A nine-film retrospective will play a number of venues worldwide. Details of the centenary celebrations here.
Film writing and directing cannot be taught, only learned, and each man or woman has to learn it through his or her own system of self-education.
Alexander Mackendrick
Alexander Mackendrick, director of The Man in the White Suit, The Ladykillers and Sweet Smell of Success, retired from his career as an internationally respected film director in 1969 and until his death in 1993 guided students through the disciplines he called Dramatic Construction and Film Grammar (‘the narrative and visual devices that have been developed through inventive direction and performing during cinema’s short history’).
A legendary teacher of cinema, Mackendrick’s writings were designed specifically for students, and are masterful studies of the two primary tasks confronting the film director: how to structure and write the story he wants to tell, and how to use those devices particular to the medium of film in order to tell that story as effectively as possible. Devoid of obscurantism, concentrating on the practical and tangible rather than abstract concepts of cinema as ‘art, ‘ they reveal that Mackendrick had the talent not only to make films, but also to articulate with clarity and insight what that process involved.
Martin Scorsese has called Mackendrick’s book ‘Invaluable… I can easily imagine a college without a film program building a curriculum around these writings.’ Mackendrick on Film would be an integral component of such a curriculum, as students will be able to see and hear Mackendrick discuss many of the concepts he articulates in detail throughout his book.
Study Sheets for Mackendrick on Film
Mackendrick on Film on the Internet Movie Database
Mackendrick on Film
© Sticking Place Films Ltd. 2004