All of the filmmakers featured in this impressive volume are more than worthy of individual books in their own right (some already have) and yet only two of the seven have had what could be called real commercial success, and of those, only one (Tim Burton) on any really consistent scale.

David Breskin originally conducted these interviews for Rolling Stone, appearing in extensive but far from unabridged form. In the magazine they have a stuttering appeal, Breskin's dogged approach hampered by heavy editing; here each appears unexpurgated, full-transcripts of lengthy twin-taped sessions with each man (it's a damning indictment that there simply are no women in a similar situation in contemporary US filmmaking), given each around 50 or so pages in which to philosophise, explain or, perhaps most intriguingly, evade Breskin's enquiries. The results are as varied as their subjects.

The best are those with Black Cinema's largely self-appointed spokesman, Spike Lee, premiere exponent of the cinema of the bizarre, David Cronenberg, and self-styled Mr All-America, David Lynch. The consummate self-publicist, Lee is memorably pinned down by Breskin, who with some humour manages to get his target to speak at length on race, misogyny and the very public face he employs to sell his work in a very white Hollywood. The exposition on (one of the best films of the 80s) Do The Right Thing, is illuminating and valuable.

Cronenberg is already the subject of two enormously deserving volumes (Cronenberg on Cronenberg, The Shape of Rage) and so his extraordinarily lucid and erudite interview should come as no surprise. As it is, Breskin successfully dissects the director's Jewish background, especially in the light of his family non-belief ("The word 'atheist' almost suggests you buy the religious system") and his definite rejection of what might be called social responsibility in art.

Earlier, Breskin corners David Lynch and more than most manages to crack his "gee-whiz" protective shell to get at real meat inside. There is the sense that the director is running scared most of the time, but to Breskin's credit he pursues as far as possible, particularly in his drawing the confession of Lynch's voting for Ronald Reagan ("I mostly liked that he carried a wind of old Hollywood," he says, "of a cowboy and brush-clearer.")

There's a conversational approach elected by Breskin here that acts to some major effect where his victims allow, a drifting feel that works, perversely, against the very films these people are there to promote. Where it doesn't the resulting piece can be stilted, awkward - Oliver Stone is the only one who explicitly realises what's going on and becomes defensive. And despite Breskin's refreshing assertion that Stone's best work is the wonderful Talk Radio, the whole is soured by being conducted while his brilliantly controversial JFK was still in the scripting. Conversely, those with Robert Altman and Francis Coppola are too conversational, leaving the reader with the feeling of being an intruder at a very private function. And in spite of its wealth of fascinating detail, the author is forced to admit that his interview with the maverick Tim Burton is heavily edited to adjust for the filmmaker's exceptionally disjointed and physical approach to speaking, so that it's left with a distinct feeling of distance that badly mars some candid material.

Not a total success then, but an extremely interesting experiment that has much to commend it. Those who prefer their interviews in handy, shiny Premiere-styled chunks will find little in the obsessive, scatter-shot detail of Inner Views to their liking, but for anyone whose cinematic taste lifts somewhat above the local multiplex and has a genuine interest in the state of the auteur in contemporary Hollywood, then this is a good place to start.