I don’t know if Angela Ismailos’s Great Directors is a great documentary, but for the most part it’s a treat to watch. On second thought, I do know: This not a great or even a particularly good documentary. It lacks structure, posits fandom as perspective and persists in drifting into unforgivable transitional shots of this or that filmmaker looking moody and glamorous. And yet it’s packed with raw material that even lesser directors than Ismailos couldn’t ruin: She gained access to 10 of the world’s more interesting directors and recorded their conversations at length. Though the movie is largely vanilla in its pleasures, film lovers will eat it up.
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