My strength is with actors. I think I'm good at working with them to get the best performances, at seeing what it is that they have and that the story needs.
Sydney PollackRead
At some point during the filmmaking process, you lose objectivity, and you need the eyes of someone who understands the process and has been in the trenches.
Interpretation
Filmmakers often lose perspective during production and need trusted feedback from experienced colleagues.
This quote by Sydney Pollack highlights the importance of collaboration and external perspectives in the creative process of filmmaking. As filmmakers become deeply involved in their projects, they may struggle to maintain an objective view of their work. Therefore, seeking input from those who understand the intricacies of filmmaking and who have faced similar challenges can provide valuable insights and improve the final product.
In practice
During a film industry seminar discussing the importance of feedback.
My strength is with actors. I think I'm good at working with them to get the best performances, at seeing what it is that they have and that the story needs.
And I taught acting for years, and without knowing it that was the real thing that started bending me toward directing.
If you have a career like mine, which is so identified with Hollywood, with big studios and stars, you wonder if maybe you shouldn't go off and do what the world thinks of as more personal films with lesser-known people. But I think I've fooled everybody. I've made personal films all along. I just made them in another form.
It's my job to motivate the audience to believe. I have to get them to suspend their judgment in favor of involvement.
You hope that the responsibility of making movies will fall into the hands of essentially moral people.
Making a movie is a network of decisions that keep multiplying as you go. You leave a trail of decisions behind you, and that's how you start to see the shape of what you've done. When you get far enough, you turn around and say, 'Ha, that's the movie.' It's only then that you find out if it's going to work or not.
An incinerator is a writer's best friend.
I have to say, I feel a weird sort of calling in filmmaking that I didn't feel with other things. I feel like there are things in life you want to do, and then things you are called to do, and hopefully you can allow yourself to want to do whatever you're called to do.
Poetry is a mixture of common sense, which not all have, with an uncommon sense, which very few have.
If you sing of beauty though alone in the heart of the desert you will have an audience.
I think that youβve got to make something that pleases you and hope that other people feel the same way.
I believe in God, Mozart and Beethoven, and likewise their disciples and apostles; - I believe in the Holy Spirit and the truth of the one, indivisible Art; - I believe that this Art proceeds from God, and lives within the hearts of all illumined men.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.