Good cinema is what we can believe, and bad cinema is what we can't believe.
Interpretation
Good cinema evokes belief and emotional truth, while bad cinema fails to resonate authentically with the audience.
Abbas Kiarostami's quote highlights the essence of cinema as an art form that aims to create a believable and immersive experience for viewers. Good cinema draws the audience in with relatable narratives and authentic portrayals, enabling us to suspend disbelief and connect with the story, characters, and emotions. In contrast, bad cinema often suffers from unrealistic plots, poor character development, or lackluster performances, which alienate audiences and prevent them from engaging fully with the film.
In practice
During a discussion on film quality, one might quote Kiarostami to emphasize the importance of believability in art.
Digital photography is, by definition, unfinished. You don't feel that after every 24 or 36 shots you have to change your film - you know you can go on for ever if you want. You can see the result immediately, and find out if your original idea is worth going on with or not, whether it can be corrected, whether it can be improved.
When I talk to some of the younger filmmakers, they are so worried about their films that, eventually, this state of being worried reflects itself in and helps the final work. Whereas, with projects that are meticulously planned, you look at the end result and it is full of emptiness.
From my very first movie, what was my concentration, my inspiration, was I didn't want to narrate something, I didn't want to tell a story. I wanted to show something, I wanted for them to make their own story from what they were seeing.
As film-makers, it is very important for us to find common ground between cultures, and maybe that's less the case for politicians who benefit more from finding the conflicts and differences between us.
Cinema gives you the opportunity to be both a grandparent and a grandchild whereas in life you cannot be both at the same time.
The calling of art is to extract us from our daily reality, to bring us to a hidden truth that's difficult to access - to a level that's not material but spiritual.
Dance is the most fundamental of all art forms.
I rap for listeners, blunt heads, fly ladies and prisoners
It is in order to really see, to see ever deeper, ever more intensely, hence to be fully aware and alive, that I draw what the Chinese call 'The Ten Thousand Things' around me. Drawing is the discipline by which I constantly rediscover the world. I have learned that what I have not drawn, I have never really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing, I realize how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle.
An artist must believe in himself - Possibly not so passionately as Lawrence - but passionately. Your belief is contagious. Others say - He is vain - but they are affected.
My kind of director is an actor-director who writes.
But then, so far as I know, I am the only performer who ever pledged his assistants to secrecy, honor and allegiance under a notarial oath.
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