Hard to believe but with this issue of the Quarterly we mark the start of our fourth year. Seems like only last month we were planning the startup. In that first issue, the DGA Interview was with Robert Altman, shortly before he passed away. The 80-year-old director of some 40 films was asked who were the directors he admired. He said: “I always thought John Huston’s films were right on the nose.”

We think so, too, and Huston’s many cinematic adventures are the subject of our photo essay this issue. Like Altman, Huston was a director who was incredibly productive right up till the end of his long and colorful life. It’s not surprising then that the range and diversity of his films have made an impression on other directors.

Spike Lee, the subject of this issue’s DGA Interview, is another director who has brought an expansive approach to the job. Since his breakthrough film, She’s Gotta Have It in 1986, Lee has worked hard to hone his craft and has produced an impressive array of features, documentaries, TV and even some very entertaining commercials with Michael Jordan. He is a director who has proven that challenging and entertaining are not mutually exclusive. Glenn Kenny caught up with Spike at his alma mater, NYU, where he now teaches the next generation of filmmakers.

And speaking again of directors who have been active at an advanced age, the amazing Joe Sargent has been directing some of the best and most socially conscious movies made for TV for over 40 years. Not surprisingly, his latest TV movie, Sweet Nothing in My Ear, tackles another provocative topic—the struggles of a part-deaf and part-hearing family. David Mermelstein reports.

Some of the most ambitious work seen on television today is not the shows but the commercials, thanks to the new generation of technology that makes virtually anything possible. In this short form of filmmaking, directors have learned to tell a story and brand a product, all in 30 seconds. Jeanne Dorin-McDowell explains how some of the top commercial directors are stretching the medium.

In the Screening Room, James Mangold pays homage to his teacher and mentor, Alexander Mackendrick. Mangold guides us through the noirish streets of New York in the ’50s in Mackendrick’s ode to ambition gone bad in Sweet Smell of Success, one of the darkest films to ever come out of Hollywood.

On a lighter note, “veteran” sitcom director Andy Ackerman explains the perils to your mental health of reading the trades in his dead-on Funny Business column. And also in this issue: Jim Sheridan, Bernardo Bertolucci and the crucial collaboration between production designers and directors. A good way, I think, to start our fourth year. Hope you enjoy it.

Best,

James Greenberg
Editor in Chief