On Reelz Channel, which is a cable TV channel devoted to movies, there's a lot of fan stuff, and a fair bit of fluff. But there's also a series called The Directors. This is a series worth watching, if you happen to have cable TV, as you get with each featured director's episode an overview and interviews. The director being featured is interviewed, but so are many people who work with them, and not just actors. It's always interesting to hear from cinematographers.
Not all episodes are created equally, and not all directors are geniuses, artists, or even auteurs. I find myself interested mostly in directors who have a body of solid work that I appreciate artistically. I usually skip the episodes about directors that do mostly fluff. Some of the episodes are a bit sycophantic, basically promotional puff-pieces; but some other episodes go quite deep, and one is left with a quote or two that one thinks about for days afterwards. Michael Mann had some thoughts that inspired a personal essay of my own.
Three of the best episodes I have seen from this series were on directors Michael Mann, Richard Linklater, and Ed Zwick. The Ridley Scott episode was pretty good, also. The Clint Eastwood episode, while not as profound as the Michael Mann episode, was one from which I learned a lot of new background that I hadn't known before.
It's interesting to learn about how each director works. I've learned some new ideas from more than one episode in the series, along those lines. I'm very interested in photographic style—I mentioned cinematography already—and certain directors excel at this, while for others it seems they barely pay attention to it.
The Directors is a series that can give you a taste of a director's work and style. A snapshot overview or summation, if you will. But each episode usually gives contextual clips from each film the director has made, leading up to an overview of The Work Thus Far. You can get a sense of what movies by a given director you might want go watch, or watch again.
