QuoteProject
I'm never certain of a performance - my own or the other actors' - or the script or anything... But to me it seems there's only one place in the world the camera can be, and the decision usually comes immediately.
Orson Welles
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Uncertainty is an inherent part of performance, yet clarity can emerge in the moment of creation.

Orson Welles reflects on the unpredictable nature of performance and filmmaking, emphasizing that while uncertainty permeates every aspect—from the script to the actors—the most crucial decisions often emerge spontaneously. This insight highlights the artistic process as one that embraces chaos while recognizing the significance of instinctive choices in capturing the essence of a performance.

Themes

PerformanceUncertaintyArtInstinctCreativity

In practice

Example use cases

A theater director might quote this to inspire their cast during a rehearsal.

More from Orson Welles

Create your own visual style... let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.
Orson WellesRead
When people accept breaking the law as normal, something happens to the whole society.
Orson WellesRead
A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army.
Orson WellesRead
I passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.
Orson WellesRead
Old age is the only disease you dont want to be cured of.
Orson WellesRead
Movie directing is a perfect refuge for the mediocre.
Orson WellesRead

Similar quotes

I suppose I'm saying that defiance is actually part of the lyric job
Seamus HeaneyRead
Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting, Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my other poems
Walt WhitmanRead
When a documentary filmmaker, working in the style that I do, suggests that there has been a shooting ratio of 40 hours to every one hour of finished film, that doesn't mean that the other 39 are bad.
Ken BurnsRead
The Heavenly Spheres make music for us,_x000D_ The Holy Twelve dance with us,_x000D_ All things join in the dance!_x000D_ Ye who dance not, know not what we are knowing.
Gustav HolstRead
The job of the writer is to look at where he is now and make some sort of emotional sense of it, not only for that moment but for years to come.
Colum MccannRead
It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
VoltaireRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.