If a story doesn't give you a hard-on in the first couple of scenes, throw it in the goddamned garbage.
Interpretation
A compelling story should evoke strong feelings from the start.
This quote by Samuel Fuller emphasizes the importance of immediate emotional engagement in storytelling. If a narrative fails to captivate or provoke a visceral reaction within the initial scenes, it is regarded as unworthy of continued attention, suggesting that impactful storytelling is essential for creating a successful narrative.
In practice
A filmmaker might use this quote when discussing the need for exciting openings in screenplays.
I don't care if it's a mystery story, a Western, or the story of Julius Caesar. To me it's the emotion, the lies, the double-cross, whether it's Brutus doing it to Caesar or Bob Stack doing it to Robert Ryan that defines what kind of drama it is.
A film is like a battleground. It's love, hate, action, violence, death—In one word, emotions.
All fiction comes from a little bit of reality, otherwise it would have no relevance. The fun is in innovation, take something real like this fair, and make it something larger than life.
There is a music for lonely hearts nearly always. If the music dies down there is a silence. Almost the same as the movement of music. To know silence perfectly is to know music.
Variety is more than a means of avoiding boredom, since art is more than an entertainment of the senses.
If I were able to write, I probably would. But movies have given me a part of my life where I can express feelings and bring convictions to an audience as if I could write. So I made 'Gandhi' about human relations, prejudice and the empire. In 'Cry Freedom' I expressed my horror and disgust about apartheid.
Fashion keeps me designing: the love of change, the idea that the next one will be the right one, the nonstop dialogue
Drumming completely eclipsed my life from age 13, when I started drum lessons. Everything disappeared. I'd done well in school up until that time. I was fairly adjusted socially up until that time. And I became completely monomania, obsessed all through my teens. Nothing else existed anymore.
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