Movies aren't finished, they're abandoned. And you have to make your peace with that.
David FincherRead
In film, we sculpt time, we sculpt behaviour and we sculpt light.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the creative process in filmmaking, emphasizing the manipulation of time, behavior, and light as essential elements of the craft.
David Fincher's quote reveals the intricate nature of filmmaking as an art form where directors and filmmakers act as sculptors. They manipulate essential elements such as time, human behavior, and light to create compelling stories and visual narratives, indicating that film is not just a medium but a profound method of expression and artistry.
In practice
A film school instructor might use this quote to inspire students about the depth of filmmaking.
Movies aren't finished, they're abandoned. And you have to make your peace with that.
You’ll find that the movie business is paid for by those mega movies. The movie business is paid for by Big Macs. By movies as product. Movie studios use that term “product” all the time. Product? You mean you have a lot of stories? No, we have a lot of product. You have stories.
For a number of years, I'd been around the kind of people who financed movies and the kind of people who are there to make the deals for movies. But I'd always had this naive idea that everybody wants to make movies as good as they can be, which is stupid.
Entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine. Some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything's okay. I don't make those kinds of movies. That, to me, is a lie. Everything's not okay.
The fact is, you don't know what directing is until the sun is setting and you've got to get five shots and you're only going to get two.
In film, we sculpt time, we sculpt behavior and we sculpt light.
I think that you certainly don't have to be aged and travel the world to write a poem.
My body is damaged from music in two ways. I have a red irritation in my stomach. It's psychosomatic, caused by all the anger and the screaming. I have scoliosis, where the curvature of your spine is bent, and the weight of my guitar has made it worse. I'm always in pain, and that adds to the anger in our music.
A critic should be taught to criticise a work of art without making any reference to the personality of the author.
I can't distract myself enough here, for sketches to a new opera are constantly buzzing around in my head, to the extent that I need all my strength to wrest myself from them.
In documentaries, there's a truth that unfolds unnaturally, and you get to chronicle it. In narratives, you have to create the situations so that the truth will come out.
It is not I that am drawing, it is this thing at the end of my hand.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.