First up, Hitchcock/Truffaut. In 1962, the French new wave film director, François Truffaut, went to Hollywood to interview Alfred Hitchcock, who had just finished filming The Birds.
What appears at first to be a complete mismatch turns out to be something of an homage as Hitchcock films and techniques had been feted for some time by Truffaut and his collegues. The film details their initial conversation, and subsequent friendship until Hitchcock's death in 1980. Truffaut produced a book based on the interview and his analysis of the films and this influenced many later directors, including Wes Anderson and Martin Scorsese. The film, however, doesn't reveal much other than some basic details, understandable given the subject matter and that the opinions of other directors had to be included to give it a broader appeal. It's an interesting piece of cinema history, nontheless, and the book might be worth a read.
Next a film about a director driven to make movies despite a clear handicap (No, not the cross-dressing: the lack of talent). Ed Wood Jr. (Johnny Depp) inspired by Orson Welles to realise his own vision of the movie business, whatever it takes, struggles to find backers and encounters failed horror actor Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau)
Made with genuine warmth and sympathy about the subject matter, Tim Burton makes a classic Hollywood-on-Hollywood movie and in such a way that makes the weird and strange look normal, which may well be Hollywood. It compares well with Bowfinger, which has a similar subject matter.
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