Great Filmmakers Offer Advice to Young Directors: Tarantino, Herzog, Coppola, Scorsese, Anderson, Fellini & More

One-to-one rela­tion­ships do not exist between the medieval Euro­pean Guild sys­tem and con­tem­po­rary labor unions or pro­tec­tion­ist rack­ets…. Nev­er­the­less, guilds were very much like both those things in some ways. They were also voca­tion­al schools, where young aspir­ing arti­sans could, with the right skills and con­nec­tions, appren­tice them­selves to mas­ter crafts­men, hope to receive decent train­ing, and look for­ward to becom­ing guild mas­ters them­selves should they per­sist.

Few orga­ni­za­tions like that exist today. But there is per­haps one indus­try in which—with the right con­nec­tions, skill, and persistence—a lucky and tal­ent­ed few rise through the ranks to mas­tery: the film indus­try, where a video store clerk, Quentin Taran­ti­no, can achieve last­ing fame and for­tune, as can for­mer part-time pro­jec­tion­ist, Wes Ander­son. Many direc­tors who came of age in the six­ties and sev­en­ties went the tra­di­tion­al route of film school, but one, Wern­er Her­zog, took a bandit’s way into the craft, steal­ing a cam­era from the Munich Film School, feel­ing that he “had some sort of nat­ur­al right for a cam­era, a tool to work with.”

Her­zog has cre­at­ed his own guild sys­tem, of a sort, with the Rogue Film School, a rough, infor­mal course, among oth­er things, in “guer­ril­la film­mak­ing.” Steal­ing cam­eras is not ruled out. But you’ll have to learn the tech­ni­cal stuff on your own. What mat­ters, most, Her­zog says, is that film­mak­ers “read, read, read, read, read.” These are direc­tors who have bor­rowed from oth­er direc­tors and films, and also from books, music, paint­ing, etc., dri­ven by an obses­sive and per­sis­tent desire to learn. And you’ll find them all in the super­cut above, in which Taran­ti­no, Ander­son, Her­zog, and oth­er “mas­ter film­mak­ers” like Scors­ese, Cop­po­la, Felli­ni, Welles, and more offer short, yet pro­found pieces of advice to aspi­rants.

We begin with Taran­ti­no, who argues that pas­sion is all you need to make a great film. “You don’t need to go to school” or know any of the tech­ni­cal stuff, but you do need to appren­tice your­self, with pure devo­tion and tenac­i­ty, to cin­e­ma. You won’t hear this from many of the oth­ers, but Ter­ry Gilliam also rec­om­mends a sec­ondary trade, maybe as a plumber, anoth­er pro­fes­sion that involves appren­tices and jour­ney­men work­ing their way up. It’s cer­tain­ly a trade that involves great skill, but to hear these direc­to­r­i­al guild mas­ters tell it, no oth­er pro­fes­sion asks for as much dri­ve and pas­sion as the movies, and appar­ent­ly you don’t even need to know what you’re doing at first. See the com­plete list of inter­vie­wees below.

QUENTIN TARANTINO: 00:00
JERRY LEWIS: 00:40
TERRY GILLIAM: 01:15
JOHN CARPENTER: 01:40
PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON: 02:30
FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA: 03:54
FEDERICO FELLINI: 04:52
WERNER HERZOG: 05:56
WES ANDERSON: 07:22
SIDNEY LUMET: 07:50
JOHN LANDIS: 08:58
MARTIN SCORSESE: 10:15
GUILLERMO DEL TORO 11:38
ORSON WELLES 14:55

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wern­er Herzog’s Rogue Film School: Apply & Learn the Art of Gueril­la Film­mak­ing & Lock-Pick­ing

Wern­er Her­zog Offers 24 Pieces of Film­mak­ing & Life Advice

Andrei Tarkovsky’s Advice to Young Film­mak­ers: Sac­ri­fice Your­self for Cin­e­ma

Aki­ra Kurosawa’s Advice to Aspir­ing Film­mak­ers: Write, Write, Write and Read

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness