Films
Mackendrick on Film (2004)
Mackendrick on Film features footage of director Alexander Mackendrick at work in the classrooms and studios of the California Institute of the Arts where, after retiring from the film industry (article here about his career as a director), he taught two classes entitled Dramatic Construction and Film Grammar for nearly twenty-five years.
The nine-part educational project, based on Mackendrick's book On Film-Making: An introduction to the craft of the director, includes filmed commentary from former students and colleagues, and extracts from archived interviews with Mackendrick about his ideas on film-making. The project has been seen at colleges and festivals worldwide, including NYU, UCLA, USC, University of London, London Film School and the Tribeca Film Festival, as well as Directors Guild of Great Britain.
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, after retiring from his career as an internationally respected film director in 1969, spent over twenty years teaching his craft at the newly established California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, where he 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.
On Film-making: An introduction to the craft of the director is a 300-page collection of writings and sketches by the British film director Alexander Mackendrick (The Man in the White Suit, The Ladykillers, Sweet Smell of Success), edited by Paul Cronin with a foreword by Martin Scorsese. Introduction to the book here. Table of contents here.
Mackendrick on Film (PDF flyer) is an educational project constructed around the film teachings of legendary pedagogue Alexander Mackendrick. Taking as its starting point Mackendrick's body of written work contained in his book On Film-making: An introduction to the craft of the director, Mackendrick on Film is a structured 'illustrated lecture' that features never-before-seen footage of Mackendrick at work in the classrooms and studios of the California Institute of the Arts, 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.
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 | Here to download photos of the film
Archive Photographs/Images
Bibliothèque du Film
Boston University
Canal +
David Brisbin
British Film Institute
California Institute of the Arts
Paula Chambers
Joel Finler Archive
Ronald Grant Archive
Scott Groller
Richard Jefferies
Hilary Mackendrick
Joe Nachison
Tom Pevsner
John Sorensen
Thierry Verrier
Archive Footage
BBC
Canal+
Lou Florimonte/California Institute of the Arts
Bill Jackson
Stephen Mills
Terry Sanders/American Film Foundation
Archive Audio
American Film Institute
Michel Ciment/Institute Lumière
Philip Kemp
John McDonough
Chris Meeks
Camera Gavin Syevens
Additional Camera Neveshandeh Bozorg
Rostrum Camera Guy Beauchard
Sound Elsie Beckmann
Assistant Sound Franck Poupart
Stills Photographer Paul Hackett
Editor Franz Walsch
Assistant Editor Harold Horton
Assistant Director Harold Shand
Post-production Supervisor Jeannie Rapp
Assistant Post-Production Supervisor Port Moresby
Researcher Lawrence Seldon
Production Co-ordinator Bruno Winter
Associate Producer Joshua Kronen
Executive Producer Guillaume Meister
Producer Presley Parks
Director Paul Cronin
Featuring
Alexander Mackendrick
with
Jamie Angell
Mick Audsley
Robert Benedetti
Michael Birkett
John Brice
David Brisbin
Paula Chambers
Doug Campbell
Tess Clark
Roger Crittenden
Johanna Demetrakis
Gill Dennis
don device
Don DiPietro
Susan Emshwiller
F.X. Feeney
Lou Florimonte
Mark Jonathan Harris
Marshall Harvey
Ronald Harwood
Mamoun Hassan
Jennie Howarth
David Irving
Bill Jackson
Richard Jefferies
Philip Kemp
Hilary Mackendrick
Kris Malkiewicz
James Mangold
Michael McDonough
Francisco Menendez
Stephen Mills
Thom Mount
Joe Nachison
David Peers
Tom Pevsner
Michael Pressman
Terry Sanders
Douglas Slocombe
John Sorensen
Andrew Tsao
Jack Valero
Colin Young
and the voice of
Adam Meggido
Mackendrick on Film on the Internet Movie Database
Mackendrick on Film
451 minutes (divided into 9 sections), colour and black & white
DV-CAM, archive 35mm and U-matic
© Sticking Place Films Ltd. 2004