By and about film directors

FOUR MUST-READS

MY LAST BREATH
Luis Bunuel
Vintage
256 pages

One of the great artists of the absurd in the last century, Bunuel's life was as rich and colourful as the plots of his surreal masterworks "� or almost.

In this beautifully written memoir he takes us (though not quite hronologically) through his childhood in Saragossa, his youth in Paris, his gradual involvement with the Surrealism movement (and with the likes of Dali and Picasso) and a filmmaking career that began with the now-legendary short Un Chien Andalou and ended nearly 50 years later with That Obscure Object of Desire.

This is a rare example of an autobiography that reads like a very good novel, even while it provides insights into the mind and working process of a remarkable craftsman.

HITCHCOCK'S FILMS REVISITED
Robin Wood
Faber and Faber
395 pages French director Francois Truffaut is given the credit for attempting the first indepth analysis of Alfred Hitchcock as a serious artist.

But even Truffaut's book of interviews looks a little shallow when set next to Robin Wood's passionate, deeply personal collection of essays on the Master and his work. Wood has been criticised in some quarters for overanalysing Hitchcock's movies "� for reading too much into them.

But if you're a true fan you'll know where he's coming from, and you'll be able to appreciate how he transforms his own very particular response to each film into a more general understanding of Hitchcock's oeuvre and the themes that run through his work.

STANLEY KUBRICK, DIRECTOR: A VISUAL ANALYSIS
Alexander Walker, Sybil Taylor, Ulrich Ruchti
Weidenfeld & Nicolson
376 pages Given that film is, first and foremost, a visual medium, there's something incongruous about the wordiness and academicism in so many studies of directors.

This book on Stanley Kubrick comes as welcome relief: though there is plenty of information on all his films, it's all interspersed (on nearly every page) with movie stills that provide a direct understanding of the man's visual style, scene composition and the motifs that ran through his career. A separate section is dedicated to Kubrick's use of colour in such films as 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange and Eyes Wide Shut.

OUR FILMS, THEIR FILMS
Satyajit Ray
Orient Longman
219 pages One of the few truly illuminating books by an Indian director, this brings together Ray's essays on various aspects of his profession.

With characteristic reverence he speaks of his own influences: Hollywood masters like Billy Wilder, John Ford and Howard Hawks, as well as movie-makers from other countries, like Renoir, Rossellini and Kurosawa.

Some of the most engrossing pieces in this collection are the ones where Ray discusses the peculiar problems surrounding filmmaking in India, and the possible roads forward.

More than 30 years after it was written, as Indian cinema continues to search for its identity, directors here can still learn a lot from Ray's words of wisdom.