Movie Directors

When he wrote, directed, edited and starred in his first film, Christopher Scott Cherot--a self-described "natural cynic"--knew enough to limit his expectations. The 30-year-old former cab driver, who admits to relying on a book called "How to Edit" while in the cutting room, planned to use "Hav Plenty" as a video resume. Someday, he hoped, the romantic comedy--about a would-be writer and the stunning, materialistic woman for whom he pines--would help him get real work.

The credit might read "A Steven Spielberg Film," "An Oliver Stone Movie" or "A Martin Scorsese Picture." Spike Lee has his own unique spin: "A Spike Lee Joint." Even lesser-known directors fresh out of film school or plucked from the ranks of TV commercials have been known to take one when making their first feature-length films. It's called a possessory credit, and many directors are given one in addition to their basic "Directed by" credit.

It was a call producer Lynda Obst didn't expect. And at first glance, it was a stretch to consider the veteran filmmaker expressing interest in her latest project. Obst and actress Sandra Bullock last year had been seeking a director for "Hope Floats," the quiet film about a former high school beauty who moves back to a small Texas town after her marriage falls apart. But they were caught off guard when Forest Whitaker threw his hat into the ring.

The mystery began with the June 11 issue of Daily Variety, which carried a full-page ad quoting the John Lennon lyric: "Everybody's hustlin' for a buck and a dime, I'll scratch your back and you knife mine." The same day, an ad ran in the Hollywood Reporter with a quote from Edmund Burke, saying: "All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing." Both ads were signed at the bottom of the page: Tony Kaye.

Director Spike Lee said the near total absence of African Americans among this year's list of Oscar nominees again raises questions about the extent of racial diversity within the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. "Until the academy actually starts to recruit younger members and there is more diversity in it, I don't see a change happening," said Lee, whose feature-length documentary, "4 Little Girls," received an Oscar nomination Tuesday. Unlike last year, when Cuba Gooding Jr.

Robert Altman has the soul of a fighter. In one way or another, this elder statesman of America's maverick directors has been fighting battles since flying 46 missions over Borneo and the Dutch East Indies in World War II. But he's a subdued warrior, the kind who relies entirely on his wits and faith in his own abilities.

As a boy growing up in Connorsville, Ind., Robert Wise said he would make regular trips to the three movie houses in town and sit transfixed in the dark "watching those silent yet eloquent shadows" on the screen. "I never guessed I would have the power to influence others as those images influenced me," Wise recalled. "Movies have been my life's work, the only vocation I've ever known."

It's rare for the British film industry to welcome a debutante writer-director with an assured talent and a distinctive, fluid visual style. It's even more notable when such a person emerges from the ranks of British actors who make a handsome living in Hollywood by playing over-the-top psychopathic villains with English accents in big-budget but formulaic action-adventure films. Gary Oldman, then, has caused a stir in his native Britain.

After "The Crow," haunted by the tragic 1993 on-set firearm accident that killed star Brandon Lee, Egypt-born and Australia-raised director Alex Proyas took his time before returning with a new feature. With the dystopian "Dark City," he's re-staking his place in modern Gothic cinema and asserting himself, at 35, as a key Australian filmmaker beside such film school classmates as Jane Campion and P.J. Hogan. GUN-SHY: "I was very badly affected by the tragedy. Brandon and I were good friends.

If you define great films as those with significant themes that successfully entertain millions of people around the world, then an astonishing number of films directed by Robert Wise qualify. And if you describe a great filmmaker as one who adds to technical mastery an ability to tell a wide variety of stories with both visual economy and respect for his audience--and whose works humanize us by showing recognizable human feelings--then the catalog of Wise films marks him as a great filmmaker.