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 –Compiled by Lisa Mitchell
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click images for larger view and details
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The following are quotes from recently written books by or about directors covering the craft of directing.
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"It is difficult to say what the director's responsibility is. It can be either commercial or artistic — only in rare cases can it be both. I think a director's responsibilities are to his employers to a great extent. After all, they have invested a large amount of money in the picture. But the director also has a responsibility to his conscience not to compromise too much. So, in the end, it is really a kind of constant tightrope walking."
Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock Interviews
Edited by Sidney Gottlieb
Conversations with Filmmakers Series,
Peter Brunette, General Editor
University Press of Mississippi "
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"Through the years I have learned sometimes painfully, that actors have to test the strength of their director. I'm not certai n whether it's out of a sense of insecurity or out of a need to challenge authority. To maintain control, a director must on occasion assert that authority. He must be certain about what he wants, but he must also be flexible and receptive to anything that will improve a scene. The tricky part is where to draw the line between being receptive and being weak."
Ronald Neame
Straight From the Horse's Mouth: An Autobiography
By Ronald Neame with Barbara Roisman Cooper
Scarecrow Press, Inc.
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"Unlike Fred Zinneman or George Stevens, [John] Ford never kept personal notes relating to how a scene should be staged or reflections on how characters should act in a scene. Ford kept all of that in his head. He knew the script better than anyone and would often cut out lines of dialogue to strengthen a scene, letting actors' faces convey the emotions needed."
Michael F. Blake
Code of Honor: The Making of Three Great Westerns: High Noon, Shane and The Searchers
By Michael F. Blake
Taylor Trade Publishing
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"Robert Altman's cinema rests on the generous principle that the material is completed in the eye of the viewer. He uses long lenses, slow zooms and tiny microphones to ambush his performers — to catch them accidentally being natural... The zoom, in particular, prevents an actor from switching off. Whereas the common method of shooting alerts a performer to the moment when he or she is in close-up, Altman prefers to render the process less mechanical for both actor and audience. We may not always be certain of a scene's intended emphasis, and it's a safe bet that the performers on screen aren't either."
Ryan Gilbey
It Don't Worry Me: The Revolutionary American Films of the Seventies
By Ryan Gilbey
Faber and Faber, Inc.
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"It takes a good deal of patience to be a director, and you, too, are going to have to be patient while trying to get in. As an example of patience, David Lean waited nearly one year on Ireland's west coast for a storm of breathtaking size for his picture, Ryan's Daughter."
Nancy Littlefield
Movies and Television: Getting In: The Ins and Outs and Ups and Downs
By Nancy Littlefield
Xlibris Corporation "
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"In a film, there's no such thing as a small or big part. There are short and long parts. In films, more or less, you can have who you want. So long as you don't want all stars. But you can have the best actors in the world and so you should cast every single part yourself. You shouldn't leave it to anybody else."
Michael Powell
Michael Powell Interviews
Edited by David Lazar
Conversations with Filmmaker Series,
Peter Brunette, General Editor
University Press of Mississippi
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