I don't watch too many films or know too many directors, but I find this thread fascinating.

The most interesting thing on this list is the SEI film directors. Besides the fact that the ones you have as SEI are mostly the very best directors (in my personal opinion), this list also requires one to stretch one's conception of SEI a bit.

I do have some sense of why Hitchcock and Fellini might be on the list as SEIs. They are, after all consummate artists, who have a feel for how to make the presentation medium itself effective for an artistic purpose, and they're good at keeping things concrete and concise, and highlighting the moment.

But, if you were to look at some of the thoughts, say, on wikisocion, about how might be expressed through music, architecture, and other forms, one might get the idea that and SEI in particular would dwell on comforting or decorative images, and perhaps give us mainly "feel good" films about dogs, documentaries about mountain-climbing or other nice scenery, light comedies, romances, and so forth.

I once saw a Fellini film, and it was all about wild imagination and surreal images. He plays a film director who doesn't know what his film is going to be about. All the stars are arriving, and they want the script. Finally, the time comes for him to announce the script, and there's a table on a stage where he sits, as if at a conference. When it's time for him to speak, he crawls under the table. It's like one of those dreams where you find yourself onstage in your pajamas and you don't know what you're supposed to do.

Anyhow, all the weird imagery might suggest to some people.

Hitchcock is another case where the main elements expressed do not seem to be ...although, again, I know why they might be. Surely, there is a concreteness and artistry to his films. But there is so much emphasis on anticipation, suspense, and thinking of what's going on people's minds that, again, one might think of .

I wonder, if these were part of this group, if they and others would correctly identify themselves as "S" types or if they would consider themselves "N" types simply because their emphasis was so much on the imagination. (I must say, I don't know that much about their lives...just their work.) This also makes one wonder about two completely different kinds of "SEIs"...the impractical, hyper-imaginative artist (who does not resemble ESE and rather resembles ILI more in some ways) vs. the kind of SEI who's great at taking care of people's physical needs. Sometimes it's hard to see how they can be the same type.

Also, I find it interesting that so many great directors are Ip temperament according to the list, with so few extraverts on it so far. While intuitively, Ips would make the best decisions about any medium for a sitting, observing audience, nevertheless the facts about what it takes to actually make a film would seem to create something of a roadblock for Ips seeking to make films.

It seems that to be a director, your main task is organizing people (at least until you're famous enough to delegate that). You have to know lots of people, call lots of people up, convince them to do stuff, and overall really be a jack-of-all-trades. It's not like being a script writer or film editor. A person has to be on-the-go all the time and a good people-organizer. That's why I would have expected more Ejs. Perhaps if this were a list of "average" directors (as opposed to great ones), it would be mostly Ejs, since Ej skills are more of what it takes to get started? (Just guessing.)