I often find in the film world, that it's very self-referring. If you talk to someone about films, they talk about them in terms of other films - rather than as something that happened to them in their life. And I'm really keen to get back to film as a reference to real things, not necessarily to other films.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of relating films to real-life experiences rather than just referencing other films.
In this quote, Steven Knight reflects on the tendency of filmmakers and critics to discuss cinema through the lens of other films, suggesting that this approach distances the medium from genuine human experiences. He advocates for a return to storytelling that draws upon real-life events and emotions, highlighting the power of film to reflect authentic life rather than being confined by its own industry narratives.
In practice
Use this quote in a discussion about the importance of authentic storytelling in films.
Making a film is hard because you're not dealing with the intangible. When you're writing, it's perfect because it's only in your head and then you have to take it into the physical world and that's where things drop off and things fall apart and you have to fix them.
The whole process of filmmaking can be chaotic, but if you can have an enthusiastic cast, you're pretty much there.
I don't have stylistic loyalty. That's why people perceive me changing all the time. But there is a real continuity in my subject matter. As an artist of artifice, I do believe I have more integrity than any one of my contemporaries.
Jazz, to me, is one of the inherent expressions of Negro life in America: the eternal tom-tom beating in the Negro soul - the tom-tom of revolt against weariness in a white world, a world of subway trains, and work, work, work; the tom-tom of joy and laughter, and pain swallowed in a smile.
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
Writers write because they cannot allow the characters that inhabit them to suffocate them. These characters want to get out, to breathe fresh air and partake of the wine of friendship; were they to remain locked in, they would forcibly break down the walls. It is they who force the writer to tell their stories.
Why not do something strange and different for once? Artists can do whatever they want!
When I see a white piece of paper, I feel I've got to draw. And drawing, for me, is the beginning of everything.
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