He’s made a lot of films about war, from the Civil War to Vietnam, but his great themes are not death and destruction, he says: “Most of my films, despite the particular subject matter, besides the tragedy or the conflict, are ultimately about love.” He’s currently working on the Revolutionary War.  It’s complicated. And delightfully so. Continue reading »

His first feature-length documentary, The War Room, was Oscar-nominated. He won an Emmy for American High, a TV series. Years earlier he received this professional tip from his mentor, D. A. Pennebaker: “You’re not a director until you wake up screaming in the middle of the night.” Apparently I am a director. As are we all. Continue reading »

He is the writer of Drafted: A Memoir of the ‘60s and the screenplays for The Boys from Brazil (Gregory Peck) Fort Apache, the Bronx (Paul Newman), and Cocktail (Tom Cruise). “I definitely learned how to deal with people who were tougher than me, smarter than me, stronger than me; I had to find my way in that world.” He means the schoolyard. He … Continue reading »

She says, “Virginia Hall was the first female field agent―spy―for Churchill’s secret army, the British SOE, and the spy the Nazis dubbed the most dangerous of all Allied spies in World War II.” She should know; she wrote and stars in A Call To Spy, a feature film about Hall’s exploits. Continue reading »

For decades, she ran HBO Documentary Films, producing over a thousand and winning more prime-time Emmies than any other person, clearly reflecting her love of the form. “No! I hate documentaries. I didn’t like documentaries at all. I wanted to do things that people watched; I wanted to get patted on the back; I wanted … Continue reading »