I believe that one of the secret engines that allows cinema to work, and have the marvelous power over us that it does, is the fact that for thousands of years we have spent eight hours every night in a 'cinematic' dream-state, and so are familiar with this version of reality.
Interpretation
Cinema resonates with us because it mirrors the dream-like states we experience while sleeping.
Walter Murch suggests that the profound impact of cinema on our emotions and perceptions stems from our long-standing relationship with dream states. For millennia, we have spent significant parts of our lives in a state that resembles the immersive and imaginative quality of cinema, making us predisposed to connect deeply with film narratives as they tap into familiar realms of our subconscious.
In practice
In a film studies class, discussing how cinema reflects our inner dream states.
You can always make a film somehow. You can beg, borrow, steal the equipment, use credit cards, use your friends' goodwill, wheedle your way into this or that situation. The real problem is, how do you get people to see it once it is made?
Film editing is now something almost everyone can do at a simple level and enjoy it, but to take it to a higher level requires the same dedication and persistence that any art form does.
The notion of directing a film is the invention of critics - the whole eloquence of cinema is achieved in the editing room.
There are many, many nouns for the act of looking - a glance, a glimpse, a peep - but there's no noun for the act of listening. In general, we don't think primarily about sound. So I have a different perspective on the world; I can construct soundscapes that have an effect on people, but they don't know why. It's a sort of subterfuge.
Film is really the one art form that can effectively use silence. Music and theater can play with silence, but they can't sustain silence without losing energy, whereas film can go into a silent mode and stay there for minutes at a time.
This applies to many film jobs, not just editing: half the job is doing the job, and the other half is finding ways to get along with people and tuning yourself in to the delicacy of the situation.
There's so many films from around the world, I emphasize, that are so beautifully photographed, but they don't get the recognition.
If you think about the way we experience art, the paradigm is still Western European. If I go to the National Gallery, what am I going to see the most of? I'm not going to see a whole lot of black figures in pictures.
If you go to a big publishing house, editorial aside, it's completely white.
I like to feel like you can bite my paintings. Not to eat them, to hurt them. I like to feel like I'm painting with my teeth.
You like it, that's all, whether it's a landscape or abstract. You like it. It hits you. You don't have to read it. The work of art-sculpture or painting-forces your eye.
Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful.
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