If Gary Cooper And Henry Fonda Had

Bad Films Gave Me The Courage To Try Making A Movie

A Filmmaker Has Almost The Same Freedom As A Novelist Has When He Buys Himself Some Paper.

Some People Demand A Five-line Capsule Summary. Something You'd Read In A Magazine. They Want You To Say, 'this Is The Story Of The Duality Of Man And The Duplicity Of Governments.' I Hear People Try To Do It -- Give The Five-line Summary -- But If A Film Has Any Substance Or Subtlety, Whatever You Say Is Never Complete, It's Usually Wrong, And It's Necessarily Simplistic: Truth Is Too Multifaceted To Be Contained In A Five-line Summary. If The Work Is Good, What You Say About It Is Usually Irrelevant.

Gee, I Wish We Had One Of Them Doomsday Machines Things.

The First Really Important Book I Read About Filmmaking Was The Film Technique By Pudovkin. This Was Some Time Before I Had Ever Touched A Movie Camera And It Opened My Eyes To Cutting And Montage.