I have lunch with lots of directors when they visit my class. They tell you how complex their life is, how frustrating their relation with an actress or a crew member was when they were filming a specific scene, how she was both cooperating yet resisting their leadership and direction, and how challenging the emotional situation of making some particular film was for them to deal with. And it’s so interesting and complex. Then I ask the director an interpretive question about a scene or a character, and he gives me a clichéd, stereotypical answer. What kind of nuttiness is this? The director accepts that his life is intricate and complex and filled with sliding, elusive, challenging interactions, but leaves that sort of complexity out of his work. Why would he do that? I sometimes tell them all they have to do to make great movie is get their scenes into the same complex places that their life was working on the movie. The meanings in life are not written in capital letters. The morality of life is not black–and–white. The interactions in life do not have clear–cut outcomes. The people the director knows are not “characters” motivated by italicized “intentions.” So why would he want to make a movie where everything was that way? I want movies that have meanings at least as slippery and subtle and elusive as my life. - Ray Carney
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 12:58:10 +0000
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