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With movies becoming more of a thrill-seeking experience (CGI, 3-D, Virtual Reality, etc.), some cultural critics have been predicting the death of cinema. With that in mind, I thought I would start collecting some quotes that describe the importance of drama and storytelling. Today's quote is from the book "Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting" by Syd Field.

"The nature of drama, after all, is to show the universal connection between all humans, regardless of race, color, gender, or cultural differences."

― Abhijit Naskar, The Film Testament

“Make films that purify the soul with the flow of rational, vigorous and compassionate thinking.”

“Use filmmaking to eliminate racism – use to it terminate misogyny – use it to destroy homophobia and all other primitiveness.”

“Entertain, but also, give the viewer something to think about.”

Francis Ford Coppola just published a book, "Live Cinema and its Techniques". Coppola gives a brief history of film and where he thinks the medium is headed. Coppola also shares a list he keeps taped above his desk that reveals what he considers the key elements of drama. I'll share a few of them.

"1. The memorable moment is often unspoken. 2. Emotion. Passion. Surprise. Awe. 3. Audiences want to become involved with the characters, want that involvement developed. 4. Audiences want themselves and their lives explained and illuminated."

Last night, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences held their 9th Governors Awards. These statues are handed out for special and/or lifetime achievements. French director Agnes Varda was one of the honorees. My quote of the day comes from another honoree, actor Donald Sutherland, who has always been one of my favorites. Sutherland, who thought his offbeat appearance would bar him from appearing in film, told the audience, "I don't deserve this, but I have arthritis, and I don't deserve that either." (Sutherland was borrowing from Jack Benny, but still funny.)

"To me, the perfect film is as though it were unwinding before your eyes, and your eyes were projecting it themselves, so that you were seeing what you wished to see. Film is like thought. It's the closest to thought process of any art."

Director John Huston

"I think no movie reaches its full potential, no matter how good or bad the movie is, until it is seen on a screen in a movie house by people who have bought tickets of their own free will. As long as I stay in the business, that's what I'm interested in. I want to send movies into movie theaters."

Actor Viggo Mortensen

"What I still want from a film--or a play, a painting, a novel, a piece of music--is exhilaration. I want to be moved and surprised at some revelation about the human condition."

Director William Friedkin

"We are all the creators of our own reality. Reality is not something that exists but is something that we have constructed, and since we have made it, we can also remake it differently."

Lucrecia Martel - Director of "La Cienaga" and "Zama"

"Reality in movies is the reality of the story you're telling, so it may not match the reality as we know it, but the reason there's art is that it tries to bring some kind of understanding of all the suffering and joys and pain that we go through. Storytelling brings some value to it."

Cinematographer and director Caleb Deschanel

"If we can make films that are useful as well as entertaining, marvelous. But cinema must reflect the temper of the times. We must choose material not only on the basis of whether we feel deeply, but on whether or not anyone's bloody well going to see it." Director Richard Lester

Check out my review of Richard Lester's gripping 1974 suspense film "Juggernaut" on the Drama Movies site.Juggernaut Film Review

"A good movie is not objective. A story done without personal conviction, on whatever level--political, social, or moral--is not worth doing and certainly not worth watching." Actor Ed Asner

I've been looking back in American film history to find those films done with personal conviction. I recently reviewed two films that were created with passion and still have plenty to say to us in our current political and social climate.

Medium Cool Film Review
Downhill Racer Film Review

"There is a renaissance in the independent film world right now with incredible work being done. You’re also seeing that there’s enough independent money that you don’t have to work on a micro budget anymore. There are ways to make a $50-$60 million movie independently and that is a real threat to the studio system. All they’re trying to do is Marvel. The only game they’re playing is the $200 million budget film. At some point, people will get tired of seeing Batman, no matter how many new circumstances they put him in. They just will." Taylor Sheridan, writer-director of "Wind River" and the television drama "Yellowstone" which premieres on June 20th

"I am very loyal: if people don’t hurt me or betray me, I stick with them. The same goes for film. It has never disappointed me; it has never caused me any problems, so I really have no reason to move to digital. It’s a powerful, beautiful, tangible technology, and at the end of the day, you have your reels and dailies to go through. Film has its own life, and it’s completely independent. It’s a real threesome: the actors, the filmmakers and film stock." Director Alice Rohrwacher whose film "Happy as Lazzaro" was selected for the 2018 Cannes Film Festival

"Nothing moves people like great narrative storytelling; nothing disarms people to go beyond their prejudices like great acting can; nothing has the ability to take people on a journey into a world that they could not fathom like fictional film. That’s what I wanted to do, give people an experience that they could immerse themselves in and “enjoy”… and yet, I also wanted to change the world."

Filmmaker Jennifer Fox. "The Tale", Fox's autobiographical film about surviving sexual abuse, aired on HBO last night.

"There's a difference between Hollywood films and mine. Hollywood is doing them because they will make money. Mine will make money too, but that is not my motivation. My pleasure is to show women in their totality--their joys, problems, potentials. And above all, the unique rhythms by which they live their lives." Filmmaker Agnes Varda, whose 2017 film "Faces Places" was nominated for an Academy Award. Varda turned 90 on May 30th.

Am currently reading a great book on post-WWII Los Angeles. I'll write a review for one of my newsletters when I'm finished. In the meantime...I came across a great quote from screenwriter Dalton Trumbo.

"Silence the artist, and you silence the most articulate voice the people have. Destroy culture, and you destroy one of the strongest sources of inspiration from which a people can draw strength to fight for a better life."

Film editor Barry Malkin died on April 4th, 2019. He was known for cutting many of Francis Ford Coppola's films, including "The Godfather: Part II", "Apocalypse Now", and "Peggy Sue Got Married". The following Malkin quote is taken from Gabriella Oldham's book "First Cut: Conversations with Film Editors".

"Some people respond to flash. It's generally easier to cut stuff like that, action scenes, where you have the option to go to any one of many places...than it is to edit a dialogue scene with a lot of characters sitting around a table...I know anytime I've ever won anything, or if people talk about it, even my peers, it's the razzle-dazzle, it's the flash, it's the quick stuff. The average dialogue sequence is more difficult to edit than the rumble scene. That's why I so admire Dede Allen's work."

"I really believe in the liberating and humanizing power of cinema. I believe that images and ideas that are carried by stories can have the power to strike you in your solar plexus, and really change your mind. I think the frequency can be spread with a little drop in the ocean with a film can really have a big, big power." Filmmaker Alejandro Inarritu

Filmmaker Martin Scorsese received some backlash recently for calling the Marvel films "not cinema" and "theme park" movies. Fellow director Francis Ford Coppola backed up Scorsese in some comments he made at the Lumiere Film Festival in France. What is notable in Coppola's interview is his concept of wealth, in both economic and artistic terms.

"There is a philosophy that a person of riches can be just or unjust. It’s very important when you talk about it. To gain riches unjustly, just uses up, it doesn’t contribute. Wealth is only what is just, what brings more to the society. Cinema is the same way. Real cinema brings something, a wonderful gift to society. It doesn’t just take money and make people rich. That’s despicable."

The Cannes Film Fest officially opens tonight with a screening of "Annette", starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard. The film's director Leos Carax made some perceptive remarks about the relationship between cinema and music: "Music is haunting, as cinema should be. I would’ve wanted a life in music. The vertigo of music. That is my biggest regret.... Cinema is the closest I could get to composing, creating rhythms and melodies. To direct is to conduct. When I film a scene, I’m pretty sure my hands unconsciously move the way a conductor’s hands do. Cinema and music are the only places where I feel at home: I never doubt what I like or dislike, and I feel I know if what we’re doing is right or out of tune."