It’s rare that a film artisan attains such a level of craft that they wind up becoming an artist themselves. It’s even rarer that you get to spend hours and hours sitting by that artist’s side, learning firsthand how he pulled off all that movie magic over the years. In the case of legendary production designer Dean Tavoularis, who died Thursday at the age of 93, I had the privilege of doing just that: talking at length with Dean about his remarkable life and career, which began with his childhood as the son of Greek immigrants during the Great Depression; shifted through World War II and into the 1950s when he was a budding animator, and then an assistant art director, at Walt Disney (sometimes working with the chain-smoking Walt Disney himself); and reached its apex a decade or so later when he designed masterpieces like Bonnie and Clyde, The Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now. Our talks culminated in a book that delves into those films, plus many others, in great detail, mixing Dean’s reflections …