The Makeshift Film School
(All heroes of mine. Several large-scale projects concurrently. Seeing the connections between them. Gestation is key.)
Word and image. (The book and the film together.)
Ninety-nine per cent of everything is worthless. Suggested definition of a useful life: searching for that one per cent. Better than creating inadequate material. Calls for a moratorium (dig into the past instead). Paying homage. Didactic revelation. (Also: learning how to ignore the other ninety-nine.) Better to appreciate the masters than create mediocre work. The dust can be invigorating. There are only ten films, ten books, ten pieces of art, ten of anything worth serious study. Most of us won’t ever come close.
“Nothing is too much trouble for the busy man. If you ever want anything done, always ask the busy man.
The others never have time.” – Preston Sturges
Open-mindedness means retention of the childlike attitude; closed-mindedness means premature intellectual old age.” – John Dewey
“I have been, for many years, part of various theatre companies, any one of which in its healthy state
nearly resembles a perfect community than any other group I have encountered.” – David Mamet
“A furious work pace and good professional collaboration can construct a fine corset against the onset of
neuroses, threatening breakdowns, and disintegration.” – Ingmar Bergman
“The man of print culture is necessarily a self-educated man.
You can’t acquire book culture by oral means.
You have to struggle alone and in silence against a distracting social environment
which looks askance at your solitary quest.”
Marshall McLuhan
(put down that phone)
Distringit librorum multitudo (“I used to get a bad conscience if I sat reading in the daytime” – IB)
The life I deserve (more or less)
It was ever thus…
