All directors are storytellers, so the motivation was to tell the story I wanted to tell. That's what I love.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the idea that all directors create narratives, driven by their passion for storytelling.
In this quote, Spike Lee emphasizes that being a director is inherently about storytelling. It suggests that the core motivation for directors stems from a deep-seated desire to convey their unique visions and narratives, highlighting the love and passion that fuels their creative process.
In practice
This quote can be used in a film class to inspire students about the importance of storytelling in directing.
I think that anyone who lives in New York, who's lived here, who's spent any time here, knows that it's basically a love-hate relationship, you might say. Even though I still think it's the greatest city in the world and I wouldn't live anywhere else, there're still things about it one doesn't like. The love far outweighs the negative.
There's an unwritten law that you cannot have a Jewish character in a film who isn't 100 percent perfect, or you're labeled anti-Semitic.
The truth is I've been doing Kickstarter before there was Kickstarter; there was no Internet. Social Media was writing letters, making phone calls, beating the bushes.
It gets dangerous when you start allowing people to validate your work.
Because many advances have happened, we've lost the urgency (and that's just human nature) that we had before, when we couldn't vote, couldn't use mass transportation, or drink from the fountains.
It comes down to this: black people were stripped of our identities when we were brought here, and it's been a quest since then to define who we are.
Got a head full of lightning, a hat full of rain.
The power of fantasy is that you can make people understand the deeper realities of our world in a way that they wouldn't normally be able to because of all the things in our world that closes them off.
'The Lion' all began with a picture of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself, 'Let's try to make a story about it.'
Profoundness, genius, spontaneity, merit, nobility, ingenuity, voice propriety, feeling, discernment, sensibility, good taste, great tone, rightness, courtliness, vivacity, boldness, style, freshness, harmony, perfection, imagination, purity, correctness. The greatest writer of all times. God's most astonishing creation.
In making movies, time is so short-because it is so expensive-that we tend to neglect the place from which the best ideas come, namely that part of ourselves that dreams. The unconscious is our best collaborator.
I like the quiet it takes to pursue an idea the way I pursued 'Hamilton,' but I couldn't write a book, because there's no applause at the end of writing a book.
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