September 05, 2011

Gurudev Uvaacha #1

On the occasion of Teachers' Day, I've decided to start a new feature on this blog. It is called 'Gurudev Uvaacha' or 'The Teacher Says'. This surely doesn't need any more explanation. So here we go...

“What the student movie director should be taught is as much of our whole culture as we are capable of synthesizing. Synthesizing, not specializing. To make a film for today’s world, we should strive to comprehend as much as possible of the human accomplishment in these last twenty thousand years.”

“Hold a mirror up to nature—that’s Shakespeare’s message to the actor. How much more does that apply, and how much more is it true, to the creator of a film? If you don’t know something about the nature to which you’re holding up your mirror, how limited your work must be! ….. A movie is a reflection of the entire culture of the man who makes it— his education, human knowledge, his breadth of understanding—all this is what informs a picture. . . . [The mechanics of making a film] can be taught over the weekend by any intelligent person. . . . The rest of it is what you have to bring to the machinery. . . . The angle at which you hold that mirror. What’s finally interesting is not the romantic tilt or spastic quirk at which you hold it—but what the mirror has to show back to you. . . . Which is determined by moral, aesthetic, and ideological orientation.”

- Orson Welles (1915-forever)

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