Lights, Camera, Inspiration

EW: You've all cited some great movies as inspirations (click here to see each director's picks for films that have influenced them), but there's a school of thought that you can actually learn more from flawed movies.
MINGHELLA: I would say the complete reverse is true. If I see something that doesn't work, I just think, ''Well, that's because none of us do good work, it's impossible to make a good film, and we should all stop.'' But whenever I encounter something that makes me laugh or makes me cry, I think, ''I must try to do something.'' The oxygen comes from other people's excellence — always. Every good director is very greedy in the most interesting sense: When they see good performances, they're greedy for that actor. I remember seeing [Krysztof] Kieslowski's Blue and wanting to know who Juliette Binoche was, wanting to simply find some way I could collide with her and see if I could persuade her to be in a film I was making.

GUEST: I agree. People who are learning to play instruments sometimes say, ''Well, I'm just going to get a cheap instrument and start playing.'' And I say, ''Get the best one you possibly can because that's going to inspire you.''

McG: [To Minghella] I notice you put The Godfather Part II on your list [of movies that most influenced your work]. Do you like it more than the first one?

MINGHELLA: One of the great pleasures of seeing The Godfather Part II is that you've seen The Godfather Part I. You knew everybody. You knew the music, which I think is very important; when that theme begins, you feel that thrill of hearing it again. It's a different relationship than the ones we have with most movies. With Woody Allen, same thing — the movies change, but there's a recognition, and you're halfway to liking the movie before you've even begun.

McG: Wouldn't you regard that as the highest compliment you can pay a filmmaker — that you know when you're viewing a Woody Allen picture or when you're viewing a Christopher Guest picture? I'm excited by people with an imprint.

MINGHELLA: It's certainly true of the movies that I chose. I mean, Kieslowski — I couldn't think of which of those films to include, because all of them have this same thing you're talking about, which is an absolutely palpable identity. I mean, Blue — you could teach anybody filmmaking from the first couple of minutes of that film because it's the most beautiful expression of how a film can start and explain to you what kind of a film it's going to be. I think we all learn from films like that. Akira Kurosawa is another director — you immediately know within a second that you're in the hands of someone who is going to transport you.

McG: [to Guest] Why is Dr. Strangelove on your list?

GUEST: Well, I've worked in comedy for 40 years and I've done satire going back a long way. And that would be considered a satire. It also stars a man who influenced me a great deal, Peter Sellers, playing multiple parts. There's a darkness to that film. There's a broadness as well. But it works as well today as it did then.

EW: I'm curious what role these influential films play in your own filmmaking process. Do you sit down when you're going to make a picture and watch other movies on the same subject to see what's been done and draw inspiration? Catherine, did you watch other biblical movies before starting on The Nativity Story?
HARDWICKE: [Laughs] No. The tiny bit I scanned through, I thought, This is not a good influence. I didn't watch them. I'd rather watch films that I thought were really about strong characters, that were character pieces.

McG: The only thing I do is I watch [the documentary] Hearts of Darkness, which Francis Ford Coppola's wife made about Apocalypse Now, because it just deals with the incredible hardship you know you're going to be presented with in the course of making a film. I figure if Martin Sheen can have a heart attack and the hurricanes can hit, I suppose I can deal with this, that, and the other and get on with it.

GUEST: There's nothing I could really watch that would have anything to do with what I do. It doesn't really apply.

EW: You're more inspired by watching people than other movies?
GUEST: It's based on what I've seen in my life. It's not literal in the sense of sitting in a room and watching films and thinking, Maybe I'll take a bit of this and a bit of that. It really is a different way of doing it, I suppose. For this movie [showbiz satire For Your Consideration], I've been nominated for awards and I've won and lost awards, so I've been through it. I didn't have to see anything. Although I would highly recommend the film The Oscar. It was made in the mid-1960s. It was a feature that's difficult to find. It's not intentionally... [Pauses] Let me leave it at that. It will be an interesting evening if you invite some people over. You won't be disappointed.

EW: Catherine, as a female director, do you feel you have added obligation to be an inspiration yourself to other women?
HARDWICKE: It is discouraging sometimes. On The Nativity Story, I was thinking, Whoa, what am I doing making this epic? But it made me feel excited to have that example out there. People told me you wouldn't be able to make a film in Morocco or even Italy as a woman because they won't respect you. But I never saw that as an issue. I think that the more people see that a woman can lead a crew and do a competent job on a big budget or small budget, I think that's great because people's minds do need to be open. As crazy as it is, there still is a tiny minority of movies made by women.

EW: How do the actors you work with inspire you? Anthony, you've worked with Jude Law a few times. Why return to the same actor over and over?
MINGHELLA: I was trying to explain to someone yesterday why movies have to be seen in movie theaters. The experience that too many people are having now watching movies on TV is that the actor's face is essentially the same size as their face. But on the big screen, you fall into the actor's face. You fall into their thoughts and wishes and desires. In the end, whether you've got 300 people in your crew or 1,000 or 50, you've got a camera and someone acting, and that's all we're there for. Directors will come and go and scripts will come and go and themes will come and go. But this constancy of our desire to have some kind of love affair with an actor in a film as an audience has never gone. It's in every movie. That's all we're paid to do: to create these moments.