Q&A with Filmmaker and Historian Mark Cousins

Mark Cousins is the Auntie Mame of filmmakers working today. By the end of Cousins’s monumental contribution to cinema, “The Story of Film: An Odyssey,” a fifteen-hour voyage into the global history of cinema, you feel as if you have lived that history. It’s a hell of a banquet Cousins puts together for us with a ridiculous amount of energy and passion for his subject–he creates an enthusiastic, addictive survey of the medium through crossing continents, time periods, styles, effects, industry trends, and so forth. To call it “absolute” isn’t necessarily hyperbole.

Cinespect caught up with Cousins in time for the MoMA screening of “The Story of Film: An Odyssey,” which runs from February 1-16. Our conversation is what follows.

Many thanks. We are still a bit amazed by the reaction–rave reviews and good sales around the world. The aim was to have impact: To make something passionate, a love letter to cinema, that would seduce people and encourage them to explore the movies. I wrote the book about eight years ago because I felt that there should be an accessible, international, single volume history of the movies. Then my producer, John Archer of Hopscotch films, suggested that we try to make the film. As it meant traveling the world and editing for years, I thought he was mad. But we started, and it grew. Doing the book first allowed me to work out storylines and themes, which would then shape the film.

Why “Saving Private Ryan” as the first film we see in the series?

The first shot in the film is from “Saving Private Ryan” because, in the edit, we decided to plunge in at the start, and the most immersive scene I could think of was that Omaha Beach scene. It immerses the viewer in sound, image, sea, war, chaos, panic. It demonstrates what cinema can do, its power....