It starts with the writer-it's a familiar dictum, but somehow it keeps getting forgotten along the way. No film-maker, irrespective of his electronic bag of tricks, can ever afford to forget his commitment to the written word.
And I may often question choices I make as a producer. But I've never questioned the choices I make as a director.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Spielberg reflects on the certainty he feels in his direction compared to the doubts he has in production choices.
In this quote, Steven Spielberg expresses a distinction between the roles of a producer and a director in filmmaking. He admits to often questioning his decisions as a producer, which involves managing the logistical and financial aspects of a film. However, he finds an unwavering confidence in his choices as a director, where he guides the creative vision and storytelling that shape the audience's experience. This highlights the creative empowerment directors often feel when crafting their artistic vision, contrasting with the pragmatic challenges faced by producers.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a film school class discussing the role differentiation in filmmaking.
More from Steven Spielberg
All quotes βWhen I was a kid, there was no collaboration; it's you with a camera bossing your friends around. But as an adult, filmmaking is all about appreciating the talents of the people you surround yourself with and knowing you could never have made any of these films by yourself.
I just had a crazy, wild imagination all my life, and science fiction is the greatest outlet for me.
From a very young age, my parents taught me the most important lesson of my whole life: They taught me how to listen. They taught me how to listen to everybody before I made up my own mind. When you listen, you learn. You absorb like a sponge - and your life becomes so much better than when you are just trying to be listened to all the time.
I wanted to do another movie that could make us laugh and cry and feel good about the world. I wanted to do something else that could make us smile. This is a time when we need to smile more and Hollywood movies are supposed to do that for people in difficult times.
There are so many rumours about so many of us in the public eye. Sometimes it's too hard to deny what is not true.
Similar quotes
Films are neither true nor false. That includes my films, as well as others. They may make claims that are true or false, but films are too complex. They have too many ingredients.
Meet some people who care about poetry the way you do. You'll have that readership. Keep going until you know you're doing work that's worthy. And then see what happens. That's my advice.
A classic lecture, rich in sentiment, With scraps of thundrous Epic lilted out By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long, That on the stretched forefinger of all Time Sparkle for ever.
Art is not in the ...eye of the beholder. It's in the soul of the artist.
An actor must interpret life, and in order to do so he must be willing to accept all experiences that life can offer.
[Six principles that make for a good story:] 1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature; 2. total objectivity; 3. truthful descriptions of persons and objects; 4. extreme brevity; 5. audacity and originality: flee the stereotype; 6. compassion.