Part of cinema's allure is its apparent magic: its images unfold (or collapse) as if a living, breathing organism. The fact of this sensation being the culmination of an amalgamation of forces – industrial, creative, administrative, technical – and talents – the writer, the editor, the actor, the cinematographer, the composer and many others – does not lessen its impact. However, to transmute the various elements requires an alchemical presence: the Director.

The individual profiles in the Great Directors critical database explore the work of the Director in relation to the production of film: his/her desires, sociopolitical stance, formal innovations, thematic interests and working methods. However, taken as a whole, the database is concerned with bodies of work and an auterist approach to experiencing cinema: that one can seek out films according to their directorial credit and that this endeavour results in an aggrandised fascination with the films – and subsequently cinema in general – as one encounters ideas, themes, statements, faces, gestures and formal devices repeated, augmented, reversed or illuminated by those in the Director's other works. The underlying principle is that such an approach yields a kind of cinephilic “multiplier effect”. For those lucky enough to be discovering cinema, the Great Directors profiles can provide a good structuring framework with which to manoeuvre through this most labyrinthine of artforms.

The variety of approaches both within and across the essays incorporates social history, psychoanalysis, theory, thematic linkage, personal response and formal analysis and highlight that the trajectory of a Director's cinematic development does not occur in a vacuum. Seemingly peripheral and contingent factors are incorporated into these histories. Ultimately, the database aims to illuminate the history of cinema.

Importantly, the database does not endorse any sort of classical “Director canon”. The profiles present Directors from across the intellectual spectrum: those praised, those reproached, those not considered, those unheard of. Common to them all is a unique vision and meaningful contribution to cinema. As a caveat, mention must be made of the problematic nature of the word “Director” in that many of the Directors featured – Stan Brakhage, Jerry Lewis, Arthur Lipsett, Jean-Luc Godard and Sadie Benning among them – are considered more in the category of “total filmmaker” and often are the sole creators of their work.

Within each profile is a critical essay, filmography, bibliography and web resources for further research possibilities. Great Directors is an active critical database and we will be adding new names every issue. If you are interested in contributing to this series, read these notes and then email Michelle Carey.