Movies aren't finished, they're abandoned. And you have to make your peace with that.
David FincherRead
Entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine. Some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything's okay. I don't make those kinds of movies. That, to me, is a lie. Everything's not okay.
Interpretation
Entertainment should reflect reality, including its struggles, rather than just provide comfort or escape.
David Fincher emphasizes the importance of authenticity in storytelling, suggesting that entertainment should not shy away from the complexities of life. Instead of seeking to provide a false sense of comfort, true art should acknowledge the challenges and imperfections of existence, reflecting a more honest portrayal of reality.
In practice
Using this quote in a film discussion to emphasize the need for honest narratives in cinema.
Movies aren't finished, they're abandoned. And you have to make your peace with that.
You’ll find that the movie business is paid for by those mega movies. The movie business is paid for by Big Macs. By movies as product. Movie studios use that term “product” all the time. Product? You mean you have a lot of stories? No, we have a lot of product. You have stories.
In film, we sculpt time, we sculpt behaviour and we sculpt light.
For a number of years, I'd been around the kind of people who financed movies and the kind of people who are there to make the deals for movies. But I'd always had this naive idea that everybody wants to make movies as good as they can be, which is stupid.
The fact is, you don't know what directing is until the sun is setting and you've got to get five shots and you're only going to get two.
In film, we sculpt time, we sculpt behavior and we sculpt light.
Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.
This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary. The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it
What a lumbering poor vehicle prose is for the conveying of a great thought! ... Prose wanders around with a lantern & laboriously schedules & verifies the details & particulars of a valley & its frame of crags & peaks, then Poetry comes, & lays bare the whole landscape with a single splendid flash.
If we doubt the power of literature and art to civilise, how come no one has ever been mugged by a person carrying a well-thumbed copy of 'Middlemarch' in his back pocket?
All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.
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