Museum of the Moving Image Pinewood Dialogues

From his first film, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, the story of the pop star's rise and early death told entirely with Barbie and Ken dolls, Todd Haynes has been one of the most idiosyncratic anatomists of the culture. While exploring many of the same themes as Superstar, Haynes's 1998 film Velvet Goldmine is an ambitious large-scale production that borrows the structure of Citizen Kane to chart the rise of glam rock and a Bowie-like star who is the movement's brightest flame. In this interview, the always erudite and engaging Haynes talks about his ongoing fascination with themes of spectacle and identity.

In the films of John Waters, "The Pope of Trash," outrageous behavior co-exists with genuine humanism. After his shocking films Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, and Desperate Living, he made the surprise move of directing a PG-rated musical, Hairspray, which placed its classic teen love story against the backdrop of early-1960s racial integration. Sadly, the movie was Waters's last collaboration with the actor Divine, who died a week after its release. Waters spoke about Hairspray as part of a Moving Image retrospective of his films.

From ensemble comedy to intimate flirtation, Richard Linklater's films capture the natural awkwardness of human encounters and the minutiae of conversation. His acclaimed Slacker (1991), Dazed and Confused (1993), SubUrbia (1996), Before Sunrise (1995), and Before Sunset (1998) each portrayed a short span of time full of finely-observed interactions. The Newton Boys (1998) marked a departure for Linklater in content and scale: a period Western about little known Texas bankrobbers. At a preview screening of the film at the Museum of the Moving Image, Linklater talks about his discovery of this film's would-be legendary characters, and how he evokes naturalistic performances from his actors.

Jim Jarmusch made his mark as a director with the deadpan comedies Stranger than Paradise, Down by Law, and Mystery Train. His astonishing film Dead Man, a poetic and beautiful black-and-white nineteenth-century western starring Johnny Depp, featured a soundtrack and songs by Neil Young. Following the lengthy, demanding production of this exquisitely crafted yet underrated film, Jarmusch continued his collaboration with Young by making Year of the Horse, a spontaneous, energetic combination of concert film and road movie. In this wide-ranging conversation, which took place on the last day of a retrospective of his films, Jarmusch talks about his approach to writing and directing.

"Jimmy Stewart on Mars" was how Mel Brooks, who produced The Elephant Man, described David Lynch. The collision between the quotidian and the dreamlike has been Lynch's key theme, from the suburban nightmares of Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks to the noir netherworlds of Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive. In this discussion, just before the 1997 release of Lost Highway, Lynch demonstrates his aversion to interpretation, preferring to let viewers take what they will from the mood and texture of his films. He reveals his method of working by instinct and embracing the role of chance in his creative process.

Ever since his directorial debut Fingers, a film that, like its concert-pianist/hit-man hero, is torn between high culture and low life, James Toback has divided audiences. His champions admire his unique mixture of pulp and art, while some, like an audience member heard in this discussion, are appalled by his approach to violence and sexuality. Toback lives up to his reputation for storytelling and entertaining indiscretion as he talks about his career and about the mixed critical response to Fingers, which was remade in 2005 by French director Jacques Audiard as The Beat That My Heart Skipped.

In the mid-1970s, every young hipster knew Buck Henry—dressed in big glasses, chinos, and baseball cap—from his appearances on Saturday Night Live. Henry had already defined the 1960s by writing the screenplay for Mike Nichols's landmark film The Graduate. He also adapted Catch-22 for Nichols and wrote the brilliant screwball comedy What's Up, Doc? for Peter Bogdanovich. In 1989, he helped define the satire of yet another generation with his screenplay for Gus Van Sant's film To Die For. This talk, following a screening of The Graduate, captures Henry's cool wit and his incisive approach to satire.

Former Monty Python animator Terry Gilliam is one of cinema's premier fantasists, a creator of films notable for their stunning visual style and their iconoclastic sensibility. With Brazil, Gilliam created the ultimate film of bureaucratic hell, and then experienced his own version of the narrative when Universal tried to bury the film's release. Ironically, the same studio later financed and released Gilliam's 12 Monkeys, which was the number-one film in the country when Gilliam spoke at the Museum. He greeted full-house audiences twice that weekend—with 12 Monkeys and Brazil—the latter on the day of the blizzard of '96.

Hal Hartley's films are marked by spare, precise visuals, a stylized approach to dialogue that allows characters to speak their innermost thoughts, and an intuitive gift for playing with the conventions of movie-making and storytelling. Playing off the contrast between cerebral characters and quotidian settings, Hartley creates comedic inquiries into the nature of belonging and the search for personal freedom. In the role of writer, director, editor and composer, Hartley exerts control over films about characters for whom control is a fragile and elusive concept. This dialogue took place at a complete retrospective early in Hartley's career.

The pioneering African-American director Charles Burnett was a film student at UCLA when he made Killer of Sheep (1977), a powerful independent film that combines blues-inspired lyricism and neo-realism in its drama of an inner-city slaughterhouse worker and his family. Killer of Sheep, now regarded as one of the best films of its era, was part of a small group of films that became known as "The L.A. Rebellion." During a retrospective of his films at the Museum of the Moving Image, he answered questions from the audience about To Sleep with Anger, his drama starring Danny Glover as a mysterious visitor from the South who stirs up a Los Angeles family.

The pioneering African-American director Charles Burnett was a film student at UCLA when he made Killer of Sheep (1977), a powerful independent film that combines blues-inspired lyricism and neo-realism in its drama of an inner-city slaughterhouse worker and his family. Killer of Sheep, now regarded as a landmark in American independent cinema, was part of a small group of films that became known as "The L.A. Rebellion." During a retrospective of his films at the Museum of the Moving Image, he introduced a screening of Killer of Sheep and then participated in a wide-ranging discussion moderated by culture critic Greg Tate.

Working at Warner Bros. from 1938 through 1962, legendary animator Chuck Jones perfected the wisecracking Bugs Bunny, the short-tempered Daffy Duck, and the amorous Pepé Le Pew. The purest expression of his artistry is his Road Runner series, in which Wile E. Coyote endlessly pursues the elusive Road Runner. With its streamlined visual style, brilliantly geometric gags, and constant comic invention, the series is a masterpiece of American screen comedy. During the retrospective Chuck Amuck, Jones spoke at length about his life and art. In the tradition of his hero, Mark Twain, Jones was a witty, wry, thoroughly engaging speaker.

Working at Warner Bros. from 1938 through 1962, legendary animator Chuck Jones perfected the wisecracking Bugs Bunny, the short-tempered Daffy Duck, and the amorous Pepé Le Pew. The purest expression of his artistry is his Road Runner series, in which Wile E. Coyote endlessly pursues the elusive Road Runner. With its streamlined visual style, brilliantly geometric gags, and constant comic invention, the series is a masterpiece of American screen comedy. During the retrospective Chuck Amuck, Jones spoke at length about his life and art. In the tradition of his hero, Mark Twain, Jones was a witty, wry, thoroughly engaging speaker.

Jennifer Jason Leigh is remarkable for her chameleon-like ability to transform herself, physically and psychologically, for each of her roles. Her ability to inhabit her characters comes from an intensive process of preparation and research, and from a fearlessness that allows her to abandon her reflective personality and become another person onscreen. Leigh has consistently sought out risky, interesting roles, working for such directors as Robert Altman, David Cronenberg, and Alan Rudolph. She spoke at the Museum on the day she received rave reviews for her dazzling portrayal of Dorothy Parker in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle.

Bonnie and Clyde, directed by Arthur Penn, was a watershed film that changed the course of American cinema with its playful, reflexive tone, its unflinching depiction of violence, and its sympathetic portrayal of charismatic outlaw heroes. During the Museum of the Moving Image retrospective American Outsiders: The Cinema of Arthur Penn, the director discussed the critical controversy surrounding the film's release, and the remarkable collaboration that included Warren Beatty as producer and star, and screenwriter Robert Benton. Penn also discusses the art and craft of filmmaking with great insight and detail.