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We filmmakers now have tools at our command that allow us to depict
anything. No catastrophe is too large; we can add blood spray, subtract limbs.
We can reach in and touch that dark place in a viewer's heart, underscore it
with rock 'n' roll, and fill theaters with teenagers howling as bodies are blown apart.

Of course there's room for violence - imagine a sanitized Shakespeare. The question is,
do we appeal to what is nihilistic in the audience, or do we accept our responsibility as
storytellers and act as mediators to the vast forces of the human soul?

The best stories aspire to make sense of what is otherwise overwhelming and chaotic.
A great film may even be made about the most recent events. The horrors behind
"The Killing Fields" or "Schindler's List" were no less.

It is not the subject but rather the intentions that determine the moral possibilities
of a film. We have all been rocked by this tragedy [Sept. 11]. And as often happens,
people vow to remember the sweetness of life and to change.

Of course, such vows are often eroded amid life's daily concerns. Right now,
Hollywood is full of an earnest sense of responsibility in this time of need. And so
it will remain -- until we find out whether such sentiments make for good box office.

   Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz

   [The New York Times, September 23, 2001]      [image from poster for "Schindler's List"]

 
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"The tricky thing about being in the entertainment industry is that basically no matter how much money is involved, how good the life is, the thing that still compels you is that thing inside... It's so weird -- you remain the same, and yet all around you, things just get jacked up... you're sitting here in the dark as usual, fumbling through."  Tim Burton **book: Burton on Burton

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We've gotten to a point where the films that were done 10, 15 years ago by studios will not be made now. Why limit the audience's imagination to such an extent? I can't figure it out. Not since 'Titus' have I come across a part I really wanted to play.  Some people could argue, well, you're 50 years old. But I look at the parts the 30-year-old actresses are doing, and I wouldn't want those, either. ...  Sam [husband Sam Shepard] was talking about it. We'd been to see one of those movies with a hip, offbeat new director. And he said, "You know the problem with these movies? There are no real characters." And it's true.

There's no real character development, or any sense of a dramatic arc. The characters just fit a slot. They're hip, funny, cool or whatever. And that's about it.   Jessica Lange    [LA Times, Dec. 31, 2000]

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Like others at Sundance... Christina Ricci said her peers have something new to offer film-goers.  They are showing more humanity in their work and more reasons to make movies than just for the sake of being "offbeat'' or "quirky.''  "There are so many independent films, so many actors, so many directors. In order to get noticed and be successful, you really have to step it up.  I think people are rising to that challenge. You can't just make something that's shocking, and people will say, 'Oh, that's independent cinema,''' she said. ... [Her film "Pumpkin''] contains the sort of new humanity in indie films she and others see emerging. "It had all these things that could be shocking or weird, but at the heart of it is a love story. That is its real intention,''

She said her goal is making original movies with original ideas and "helping this business, this art form, to evolve.''    [Reuters, January 17, 2002] photo from RAINN (the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network)

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"A lot of films look like they're two-hour commercials. You don't stick with anything very long,
you can't get in touch with the characters -- they're just props to move the action along. It's
a fast, assaultive ride, then it's over."

         Robert Redford     [imdb.com  StudioBriefing, Nov. 2, 2000]

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In large part, Redford feels that Hollywood has abdicated its position to make challenging
human stories because of its dependence on the marketplace.

"The commercial restrictions that have been imposed by now moving toward a younger
audience have spawned a dearth in creativity," he said. "By doing this, you get more formula,
more action, more special effects, more reliance on what has already worked. Therefore,
you have less exploration for riskier product."

The studios have thus given the independent filmmaker a great opportunity, Redford believes
filmmakers out of the mainstream are facing little competition for fresh ideas from corporate
Hollywood.  [Hollywood Reporter, Jan. 15, 2002]
 

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Robert Altman looks at women in the same way he looks at men, as individual human beings who provide resources for various emotions and experiences. He finds women and men to be of equal interest. Most male writers and directors have trouble doing that.  Everyone uses their own experiences, but I think creative men in particular use the women in their lives as resources. Altman surrounds himself with strong, interesting women who have something to say."    Helen Mirren - acting in Gosford Park, directed by Altman   [imdb.com PeopleNews Jan. 17, 2002]

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Real art is without irony. Irony distances the author from his material... Irony is a cheap shot. Robert Altman .....[Utne May/June 2003] bio: Robert Altman: Jumping Off the Cliff - by Patrick McGilligan

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A lot of big budget filmmaking is about having a discipline and learning tricks of the trade rather than being in the moment. In a small film, you can really let go a little bit and enjoy it. With larger films, that becomes much more difficult. It's like this long distance marathon. On a daily basis, there are compromises.    Saffron Burrows    [Toronto Sun, March 20, 2000]

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"I am not ashamed of chick flicks ... I am proud of the messages they deliver. 'Charlie's Angels' showed that women can be smart and sexy; And just look at all the young girls who went out and joined softball teams after they saw 'A League of Their Own'!" -- Columbia Pictures Chairman Amy Pascal, honored at the Women in Film's 25th annual Crystal Awards.  [Reuters/Variety 06-11-01] DVDs: Charlie's Angels    A League of Their Own

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I'll get the "A film by..." credit right? I really need the "A film by..." credit because it's different than
the "Directed by..." credit. They say two different things. "Directed by..." says I'm the guy who directs
the actors, approves the sets and costumes, approves the script, and that's all.

"A film by..." says I'm much, much more. I'm more of a...how can I say it? A film personality,
I guess. I'm a guy who makes films. I supply the aura.

What if someone watching in Oklahoma sees the film and there's no "A film by..." credit?

He sees the "Directed by..." credit and wonders "Yes, but who made the film? Whose film is it
in the existential sense?"

This lack of information could spoil the film experience for him.

Frank Capra didn't have the "A film by..." credit and today he's practically forgotten.

****from Writers Guild wga.org article: "A Film By Steve Martin" by Steve Martin  --

******   Steve Martin is also author of the book Shopgirl

  ******photo from his website: stevemartin.com

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"Art should be brave and, unfortunately, Hollywood has some very bad habits that keep bravery from happening."  James Earl Jones [nuvo.net 1996]   biography: James Earl Jones (Overcoming Adversity) by Judy L. Hasday

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"Hitchcock once said of Charles Laughton, dismissively, that he was 'an amateur.'

And when that got back to Laughton, Laughton just shrugged and said, 'Well. It means lover. I love my work.'

I've always liked that."

   Hal Hartley  [www.best.com/~drumz/Hartley/ ]

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George Lucas: "If I'd have gone to art school, or stayed in anthropology, I probably would have
ended up back in film... Mostly I just followed my inner feelings and passions.. and I just kept going
to where it got warmer and warmer, until it finally got hot, and then that's where I was... Everybody
has talent, it's just a matter of moving around until you've discovered what it is."

[from achievement.org interview]

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"Making movies is all about instinct. Nobody taught Picasso to paint - he learned for himself. And nobody can teach you to be a producer. You can learn the mechanics, but you can't learn what's right about a script or a director or an actor. That comes from instinct and intuition. It comes from inside you."    Dino De Laurentiis  [LA Times 1.23.01]     ~ ~ ~ 'Now 81, Dino De Laurentiis said his stamina comes from still having "three C's: cuore, cervello and coglioni," referring to heart, brains and balls. "This profession of ours is something you have to love passionately because if a film isn't made with great love it shouldn't be made at all."'   [from interview by Douglas Eby for Cinefantastique - on making "Hannibal"]

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"And the dark, dirty truth about the movie business is whether you are in Hollywood
or in the independent sector, as an executive, you are essentially motivated by fear
every single day. And I don't think fear is a great motivator.

And I don't think that anything interesting has ever been made by people playing it safe...
great things happen when people take chances, and I think if you're motivated by fear,
your chances of supporting risk-taking is very low.."

Liz Manne, Executive VP, Programming & Marketing, Sundance Channel  [indiewire.com interview]

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"I think in order to do a film like JAZZ, or Civil War or Baseball, you have to be an optimist at heart. You have to stay with it. This is about process. ... And we just worked, day by day, and we just sort of put on the layers, and something accrues almost like the layers on a pearl, you can't quite identify, but they're there. And then at the end, you have something that is durable and that you hope will speak to many people."    Ken Burns - from PBS interview about his film Jazz

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"Awareness and understanding of the dramatic act of decision-making is the missing  ingredient in most interactive experiences. Film writers and directors have been adept  for years at sculpting these moments of decision-making to draw us in and manipulate  our emotions ...  Ironically, interactive designers, trained in the technical aspect of the 'decision point,'  seem hard-pressed to understand the emotional and intellectual ramifications, drama,  intensity of decision-making and its power. It is precisely this lack of understanding that  results in interactive experiences that, although sometimes entertaining and even  compelling, lack the kind of emotional power that we experience in films and even novels." Celia Pearce - from her book: the interactive book

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"If we understood that this is a time of national emergency, we would quickly limit the sheer volume
of products that contribute to the culture's atmosphere of violence and incivility... [we'd] create a wealth
of movies and programs that inspire and challenge teens, cause them to think and question, that help to
counter the national funk of cynicism, and show human beings solving problems without resorting to violence.

It's our responsibility to help reverse the current negative forces -- but the good news is that we know
we have the power to do so. Stories and images do change lives."

  Robin Swicord  [LA Times, May 30, 1999] ****screenwriter: dvd:**Little Women
 
 

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"[A producer is] the glue that holds everything together. .. the conduit, or a buffer, between the financing and the creative team. .. And the producer has a creative  responsibility to making the best possible movie and pulling all the elements  together and setting the stage so that each creative entity--the director, the actors,  the production designers, etc.--can function at their best and not be distracted by  the myriad of details during production."  Paula Wagner   [partner of Tom Cruise in Cruise/Wagner Productions] [from article Female Persuasion]

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**************"I've read a lot of scripts lately in which I think that there is a trend
toward very violent, very sexual, very raw, dark genre movie-making. Maybe young
filmmakers are saying, 'I'm going to do something in the independent world that's so dark
that nobody else would make this.' ... But I think the really courageous and bold move
is to make a movie about human behavior."  Laura Dern  [edrive.com]

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"We believe it's time to end violence, stereotyping and sexual exploitation in our mass media.
Print, radio, cable, television, film and web media have a powerful influence upon our society.
Media has become the universal culture that has the power to affect public opinion which
drives public policy."       from mission statement of Campaign for Positive Media

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The City of the Angels Film Festival
"grew out of a dialogue between filmmakers and theologians who believe that spiritualÝ perspectives
are indispensable to the filmmaking process.Ý We are dedicated to screening quality works that not only
celebrate film as art but also raise vital religious and social issues."

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"My problem is that I like to play Latino and non-Latino characters, but when I encounter the Latino ones, they are rarely as fleshed out as my characters in La Bamba, Mi Familia and yes even Bad Boys. I don't mind playing the bad guy, but when the bad guy is all you get that has any flavor--any color, you start to feel like you're there as hate fodder. I originally sensed this in Bad Boys. I was a guy that you could hate because he was dark, ethnic, dangerous, violent. These are things that we have been labeled. Some people deservedly, but the vast majority of our community does not deserve it.

We have people who have excelled in industry, the arts, even military and other areas that we're not famous for. But you never see those people. You never see characters in positions of authority that are also Latino. We are so often marginalized and thrown in to add flavor or 'spice' that you never get a chance to see who we really are beyond the stereotypes and it's a disservice to non-Latinos and Latinos."

Esai Morales   [Washingtonpost.com 9.29.99]

Morales is a founder of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts: hispanicarts.org

"Now, the media business (and Hollywood in particular) is especially notorious for false enthusiasm - fantasies without much clarity, focused intention, or real sustainability. It is also filled with people who broadcast fear and negativity, constantly comparing themselves with others, perceiving themselves as superior or inferior.

This is where we need to cultivate 'ruthless compassion,' the ability to gently but firmly cut through all illusion. And the first place to apply it is in facing our own fruitless fantasies and fearful comparisons! Only then can we cut through the illusions of others with honesty and love, rather than judgment and anger."

Peter Tjeerdsma  [from transformedia.org article : "Maintaining Spiritual Integrity While Working in the Media"]

  << related page: mental health

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"What's lost today is that intimate connection to the process and the talent. Until the '80s, Harvard MBAs and Wharton grads
went to Wall Street. Now they flock to Hollywood and Beverly Hills. They want to be in show business because it's chic
and the money is intoxicating.

It has to be when you can sell someone for $1 million and make $100,000 with one phone call... My contemporaries
were streetwise people. Who knew from rich? Sure, you could make moneyóand we wanted toóbut nowhere near
the kind of money you can make in this business today. It wasn't about that. People were lured to entertainment
largely by their dreams. It was wish fulfillment. They wanted to be the people on the stage and screen.

Too many of today's show-business players just want to make the money their clients make. If power and notoriety
are part of the bargain, all the better. I believe the business, the art, and the public all suffer for it."

manager and producer Bernie Brillstein   [from his book Where Did I Go Right? ]
 

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Tim Robbins and "The Player"

In "The Player," Robert Altman's masterly, deadly funny murder-mystery/satire
of Hollywood's power elite, Tim Robbins plays Griffin Mill, a studio executive
so callow he seems stuck in some early stage of fetal development.

Mill is a boy wonder, one of the handful of major players who can "green-light" a picture,
but he's so unformed that the flesh on his face hasn't decided yet where it intends to settle,
and peering out over his dimpled cheeks are a set of baby blues so unsullied by experience
that they appear nearly transparent.

Though Mill is on top of the heap, his eyelids quiver with impending panic.
Rumors are flying around town that an executive from Fox named Larry Levy
(Peter Gallagher) is about to take over his job. ...

Altman is playfully dead-on in his critique of Hollywood fatuity in all its trendy forms --
the cars and car faxes, the obsession with bottled water, the facile insider-speak. This is
the real "L.A. Story," Hollywood seen from the inside by a director who's seen it all,
who knows every twist and dip in the roller coaster. ...

An executive like Mill holds the artist's life in his hands, and perhaps no one in Hollywood
knows that better than Altman. For the execs, a filmmaker like Altman is the ultimate wild card.

Because he doesn't follow the formulas, he can't be trusted to follow orders. It's his picture,
not theirs. But it's Altman's insistence on making a movie his way, out of his own gut,
that makes "The Player" such a miracle.            Washington Post, April 24, 1992

**-dvd:**-The Player

 
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Robert Rodriguez says his main intention with all his films,
including the home movies he now makes at his Austin area ranch
with his kids -- 5-year-old Rocket, 3-year-old Racer and 2-year-old Rebel --
is to entertain.

"All of the independent people who say they're independent,
they didn't make their movies by themselves. I did. I was the whole crew,"
he says, laughing. "I mean if you really looked at ('El Mariachi'), the only
reason it seemed arty was because it was in Spanish. But if you spoke Spanish
you realized, this is just a cheesy exploitation movie about a guy with a guitar
case who becomes a gunman. "It was total cheese. I was just having fun with it."

   [cnn.com/2001/SHOWBIZ]

book: Robert Rodriguez. Rebel Without a Crew : Or How a 23-Year-Old
                       Filmmaker With $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player

"Andrew is the most meticulous person I've ever worked with --
very specific, down to gestures and how clean the floor is.
He writes with metaphor, and his pieces work on several different levels."

 Ethan Hawke  [about his "Gattaca" director Andrew Niccol]

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"No, I'm a greatist. I only want to do it until it's great."

 James Cameron, responding to an actor calling him a perfectionist
 

 << related page: perfectionism

Walt Disney: "We don't need all this fancy stuff, actually. The mechanics are secondary...
The thing that makes us different is our way of thinking, our judgment and experience
acquired over the years."

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"It has to do with irony... A lot of scripts that come out of Hollywood could only come out of
Hollywood - they seem to come from other films, not from life."

Stanley Tucci   [millimeter.com]            << related page: play / screen writing

Tiare White, a Bunche Scholar at Colby, transferred to UCLA after her first year at Colby [College]
but returned .. "appalled" at the quality of education at the larger university. After graduation from
Colby she completed a one-semester filmmaking crash course at New York University.

She spent three years at AFI and emerged feeling limited by the label the industry had put on her.
"I really felt that I couldn't write my own screenplay because I was a production designer. . . . I really
began to believe in the constraints."

Colby Magazine, Summer, 2000

White is co-author of What They Don't Teach You at Film School : 161 Strategies
for Making Your Own Movie No Matter What

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