From a book called Screen Epiphanies, film directors share the films that first inspired them. Well worth the read, some big names and interesting perspectives:
Martin Scorsese
The Red Shoes
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1948
I used to call it brushstrokes, the way Michael Powell used the camera in The Red Shoes. Also, the ballet sequence itself was like an encyclopaedia of the history of cinema up to that point. They used every possible means of expression, going back to the earliest days of silent cinema.
Danny Boyle
Apocalypse Now
Francis Ford Coppola, 1979
I had always wanted to be a film director since seeing A Clockwork Orange, but it was in the same way that I wanted to be a train driver. It wasn’t practical really. I never went about doing anything about it. I did plays at school and I directed assemblies on stage. Then I went to university and started doing drama. I started directing there properly but I was directing for theatre (not film).
Thanks to Kotke: Films that inspired directors
