David Thomson

The director that everyone loved to hate: David Thomson interviews Peter Bogdanovich

Thomson talks to the filmmaker about Buster Keaton, falling out with Hollywood and his mentor Orson Welles

The man who turned down The Godfather, The Exorcist and Chinatown: Peter Bogdanovich in February 1977 [Photo: David Montgomery / Getty Images / Hulton Archive]
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Peter Bogdanovich’s new documentary about Buster Keaton, The Great Buster, is a match made in movie heaven. I can’t think of two men more devoted to making motion pictures — huge successes in their day — more acquainted with the merciless climate of Hollywood, or more aware that they were as instrumental in their own downfall as in their glory.

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