Movies aren't finished, they're abandoned. And you have to make your peace with that.
Interpretation
Movies are never truly complete; the process ends when creators decide to move on.
David Fincher's quote reflects the complex nature of film-making, emphasizing that a completed film is more a matter of the creators' decision to stop refining it than a definitive point of perfection. It highlights the reality faced by filmmakers that they must reconcile with the fact that their work will always have room for improvement and cannot be polished indefinitely.
In practice
When discussing the creative process at a film festival.
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.
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.
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.
There are some subjects that can only be tackled in fiction.
My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.
On the Internet, all those same guys that are complaining I made a change are completely changing the movie. I’m saying: ‘Fine. But my movie, with my name on it, that says I did it, needs to be the way I want it.’
I'm singing what I want to sing based on the emotion of what that day feels like. That's what comes out of my mouth and guitar. That impacts people. They know anything can happen.
What do dancers think of Fred Astaire? It's no secret. We hate him. He gives us a complex because he's too perfect. His perfection is an absurdity. It's too hard to face.
Once a month the sky falls on my head, I come to and I see another movie I want to make.
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