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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Directors who are blinded into thinking their work is a failure...

D

Daniel Porto

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Why is it that some of the most successful films of our time are perceived half way through production to be "shitty" by the Directors who make them? Most of the time it seems that in pre-production they are confident but somewhere along the way they lose all hope... the most notable example being Francis Ford Coppola and Apocalypse Now...

To quote:

  • Francis Ford Coppola: My greatest fear is to make a really shitty, embarrasing, pompous film on an important subject and I am doing it. I confront it. I acknowledge. I will tell you right straight from the most sincere depths of my heart, the film will not be good.
  • Eleanor Coppola: It's like going to school. You finish your term paper and maybe you get a B instead of an A+ that you wanted, so you got a B -
  • Francis Ford Coppola: But I'm gonna get an F! This film is a $20-million dollar disaster. Why won't anyone believe me? I am thinking of shooting myself!
 
Have you ever exposed yourself, taken a huge risk and put your heart and soul out there for the world to see? Have you ever completed a project and known that is it... All of it... There is no denying that the result is the absolute best you can do. You know that you can make no excuses for it. At some point it dawns on you that you may come to realize that the best you can do simply sucks. It can be terrifying.
 
Really interesting subject. All the directors don't feel the same though. I live with a film director, and I agree with Scott. In my opinion, the director's job is the most terrifying one. They put so much of them into their work (well, the best ones) that they seem to live on another planet which goes more and more away from the real world during the filmmaking process... By the way, the success of a movie isn't necessary related to its quality...
 
Ever told a friend how 'awesome' this thing you're working on is only to get close to release and realize you might have oversold it? That you didn't quite get it that good? That's the feeling. Sometimes you'll be right, sometimes you'll be wrong, and the most important thing to remember is always get a second opinion. There's gotta be someone to screw your head on straight, otherwise you might start believing whatever crap your spouting and actually quit...
 
Because the greater the emotional and creative investment you put into your work (which must be done to make it excellent) the greater the fear that it will all come to ashes and humiliation. And the insecurity that often goes with talent frequently causes doubts and fears to emerge at the delicate point in a film' genesis before its strengths emerge. Who among us has not reached a point in a project where we thought "Fuck! This really sucks. I am totally screwed.". And, sadly, sometimes it's true.
 
Jochen put it perfectly: when you're imagining it, it's a masterpiece. When you're watching it come together you've seen the sausage making, you're watching with a critical eye and seeing everything that's wrong. The artist, but the director mentality in particularly is the ability to really break something down and see all the details while focusing on the big picture--part of that is being aware of every tiny mistake so you can determine whether it's important to fix or not. You see every plot hole, you hear every off-delivered line and it's hard to put yourself in the position of a 'naive' viewer. "Oh I just shamelessly ripped off______ there." "Wow, a rack focus, nobody has ever done one of those before."

Movies are emotion delivery vehicles. It's really hard to watch something that started in your head as raw pure emotion, translate it through an expressive medium and then view it and hope to get the same experience--so you assume it's not carrying any emotion at all.
 
Having shot enough film to understand that things change, I think the trick is to allow the film to become what it can be. Forcing circumstances and resources to create your "vision" practically guarantees "failure". Even if Apocalypse now isn't what he wanted it to be, it's still a masterpiece. THE SHINING is a masterpiece, Stephen King thought it was a failure - because he wanted to see his book onscreen, and that's impossible. BLADE RUNNER started out as a script that adhered to a lot of the tone of the book, evolved into something else that barely reflected Philip Dick's novel. Creativity is fluid, the results are essentially unknowable until the process has played itself out. Especially in film where you have to use collaborators from various disciplines, whether you want to or not.
 
Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock said:
Because in your imagination the film is perfect - and during the shoot you realise it isnt.
The genius italian conductor Toscanini once said to his musicians: "I hate you. You are killing my dreams."
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+1

Gavin Greenwalt said:
Jochen put it perfectly: when you're imagining it, it's a masterpiece. When you're watching it come together you've seen the sausage making, you're watching with a critical eye and seeing everything that's wrong. The artist, but the director mentality in particularly is the ability to really break something down and see all the details while focusing on the big picture--part of that is being aware of every tiny mistake so you can determine whether it's important to fix or not. You see every plot hole, you hear every off-delivered line and it's hard to put yourself in the position of a 'naive' viewer. "Oh I just shamelessly ripped off______ there." "Wow, a rack focus, nobody has ever done one of those before."

Movies are emotion delivery vehicles. It's really hard to watch something that started in your head as raw pure emotion, translate it through an expressive medium and then view it and hope to get the same experience--so you assume it's not carrying any emotion at all.
Click to expand...
+1a
 
I think the "perfect" director is a mixture of a talented, sensitive artist and a robust crisis-counselor/manager. (Perfect here means that he won't have many problems during production because of his diverse talents). In reality, some director are more sensitive artist than robust manager. They are bound to have doubts like any artist does. Picasso probably destroyed lots of possible-to-become masterpieces because halfway through he thought they were crap. He would have felt the same panic Coppola did if destroying an unfinished piece of work meant that he had to pay 20 mio to some producers :)
 
Because perfectly executing our imagination is hard without a massive budget. And because:

Rob Gardner said:
(...)the insecurity that often goes with talent frequently causes doubts and fears to emerge(...)
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Few understand it is this insecurity that drives so many to perfect a piece of work to the point it is later universally deemed as art.
The trick is to do the work before the expensive production machine is awakened.

So:
Felix K. said:
I think the "perfect" director is a mixture of a talented, sensitive artist and a robust crisis-counselor/manager.
Click to expand...

You have to know exactly what you are going to do before stepping on set, or you already lost before you even got there. But you
also have to remain pragmatic and flexible, work with what you are getting not what you wanted, or you lost just as well.

But there are countless artists that will never be happy with any of their work, ever.
Many recognize this and utilize it in a pragmatic way, to a great benefit for all.
 
As director, you're in position to know exactly what isn't coming off as you envisioned. It can be hard to look at a film knowing what it was meant to be, and accept it for what it is.
 
Felix K. said:
I think the "perfect" director is a mixture of a talented, sensitive artist and a robust crisis-counselor/manager. (Perfect here means that he won't have many problems during production because of his diverse talents). In reality, some director are more sensitive artist than robust manager.
Click to expand...

This is why I have so much respect for Ridley Scott. He has the perfect blend of artist and Northern no-nonsense business prowess...with a good balance of integrity and realism.
 
I think Woody Allen put it best:

'The best an idea gets is when it's in your head.'

From there it's just a matter of how much you screw it up.

I think we've all been faced with this. We think of something that seems perfect, but the execution doesn't quite live up. Doesn't matter if everyone else loves it and says it's great, you will always know it that it wasn't exactly what you wanted.
 
This exact problem is why I developed Non-linear Production over the last decade. As a director, it's impossible (for me, anyway) to get what I want in just one try. I have to try, fail, fix, try again, fail, fix in a loop until I converge on something that (hopefully) is great.

I love the comments in this thread by the way, they get to the very heart of why being an artist is so exhilarating and at the same time, so terrifying.
 
Roberto Lequeux said:
But there are countless artists that will never be happy with any of their work, ever.
Many recognize this and utilize it in a pragmatic way, to a great benefit for all.
Click to expand...

What's that line?

"When you seek greatness, your failures will be extraordinary. When you aim for mediocrity even your successes will be failures."

Then again there's also
"Best is the enemy of the good." :D
 
Erich Ocean said:
I love the comments in this thread by the way, they get to the very heart of why being an artist is so exhilarating and at the same time, so terrifying.
Click to expand...

I agree... Thanks for the replies everyone! Once upon a time I called www.cinematography.com my home for questions like these but the negativity and bitterness on that forum is just to much for me these days - I've found a new home...
 
Unless I've missed a post saying the same thing I think it's a little more than what has been said. I feel that to know that you are doing well in the midst of making something means it is probably going to be ordinary. There is something of a truth in that to be on the edge where others have not been means that the future is truly unknown. That is the basis of insecurity and quite naturally so. From that point great things can be achieved...or not. It a little similar with actors. For them to KNOW what kind of performance they are achieving means they are self conscious thereby creating a false performance. When they are out on a limb and unaware of what they look and sound like the performance is almost always a genuine one. But again it comes with a lot of insecurity. That's why I think you've got to love your cast as they are naturally in a vulnerable and risky place.
 
Polanski probably never thought his work was shit. And he is right.
 
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