Sublime

Movies are an authoritarian medium. They vulnerabilize you and then dominate you.

When this movie’s going right, it makes the spectator aware not only of repetitiousness but of the actual duration of a commonplace act.

Ebert knew his time on this planet was short, and he wanted to share everything he could in the time he had left. “Mr. Ebert writes as if it were a matter of life and death,” wrote journalist Janet Maslin, “because it is.” Ebert was blogging because he had to blog—because it was a matter of being heard, or not being heard. A matter of existing or n

The editor is required to set ego aside. Ego pridefully attaches to individual elements of a work. The editor’s role is to remain unattached and see beyond these passions to find unity and balance.

Romantic screen idol John Gilbert, the most notorious loser in the changeover, did not really have such a bad voice and actually did make several successful talkies. But audiences could not accept his rather thin, reedy voice as belonging to the suave and virile movie persona he had developed over the years, and he soon lost favor.

parti pris

What I like about film is that you never immediately know what has been shot. When I feel in my guts we have the best we can possibly get, I stop. I don’t want to be able to push a button and check there and then what we’ve been working on. This is why you won’t find video-assist monitors on my set. I feel the same way about dailies, which I always