I found out today that I've been attributing my favourite anecdote from the world of cinema to the wrong person. I for some reason thought it was David Lean (whilst directing Lawrence of Arabia), but it apparently was John Ford who upon being asked by his crew what they were going to film out in the middle of nowhere replied something like: 'The most interesting and fascinating thing in the entire world: the human face'. Perhaps David Lean did say it, only he prefaced his remarks with 'As John Ford said...'. It's hard to tell, but this other quote from Ford seems to sway the balance: 'Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals. Directing is not a mystery, it's not an art. The main thing about directing is: photograph the people's eyes'. It seems this principle is somewhat lost on modern Hollywood. They concentrate on the explosion, when they should focus on the reaction of the actors - that's what we're really interested in. It's from the actor's response that we get the sense of how to interpret what has happened. Really, we don't need the explosion, just the actor. And, of course, this is what you get in some very cheap productions, as if by accident - when forced to leave out the explosions, you actually get a better film.
Unfortunately I've not been able to see any films this week due to a lack of funds, and I've been a day behind in my posts due to laziness, but hopefully today (Saturday) I will both catch up with posting and see a movie.
1 comment:
I too have been mis-attributing that quote, but then I think you told me the quote.
This is surely the Hitchcock principle of suspense. Somewhere, and I've tried to have a look for it but failed, it may have been in the Truffaut interview, this is my remembered version of what he said... He describes a scene where two people are sitting in a cafe. There is a briefcase next to the table, the camera pulls in towards them and as it pulls in we have a special effect showing that their is a bomb inside the briefcase - a cutaway of the briefcase. It shows it's a quite rudimentary affair containing explosives and an alarm clock. The moment you see the alarm clock we add a ticking noise and now we carry on. There is an inconsequential conversation going on between the two, perhaps explaining another aspect of the plot. You constantly cut back to the shot of the briefcase, now closed and are constantly getting closer to it. The ticks and tocks seem to be getting faster and faster as the danger seems closer and closer, and then a telephone rings, sounding almost like an alarm clock and you cut to the telephone being picked up and the person reacting saying, "A bomb has exploded! Is Richard all-right? He's dead!"
I think this is also related to the happiest accident in modern cinema. The failure of the Jaws shark to work regularly made a great director of Spielberg. It taught him a lot about film making.
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