It starts with the writer-it's a familiar dictum, but somehow it keeps getting forgotten along the way. No film-maker, irrespective of his electronic bag of tricks, can ever afford to forget his commitment to the written word.
Steven SpielbergRead
You can't intellectually purge yourself of who you are. Whatever that is, it's going to come out in the wash, the film wash. What you are is going to be relevant, if not to yourself, to the movies you make.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Your true self will always influence your creative work, regardless of your attempts to separate yourself from it.
In this quote, Steven Spielberg expresses the idea that an individual's identity and experiences are inextricably linked to their creative output. No matter how much one may try to detach from their personal feelings or background, these elements will inevitably manifest in their work, particularly in filmmaking, where personal authenticity plays a crucial role in storytelling and artistic expression.
Themes
IdentityCreativityAuthenticityFilmSelf-Expression
In practice
Example use cases
In a film class, discussing the connection between personal experiences and creative output.
More from Steven Spielberg
All quotes βWhen I was a kid, there was no collaboration; it's you with a camera bossing your friends around. But as an adult, filmmaking is all about appreciating the talents of the people you surround yourself with and knowing you could never have made any of these films by yourself.
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I just had a crazy, wild imagination all my life, and science fiction is the greatest outlet for me.
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From a very young age, my parents taught me the most important lesson of my whole life: They taught me how to listen. They taught me how to listen to everybody before I made up my own mind. When you listen, you learn. You absorb like a sponge - and your life becomes so much better than when you are just trying to be listened to all the time.
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I wanted to do another movie that could make us laugh and cry and feel good about the world. I wanted to do something else that could make us smile. This is a time when we need to smile more and Hollywood movies are supposed to do that for people in difficult times.
Steven SpielbergRead
There are so many rumours about so many of us in the public eye. Sometimes it's too hard to deny what is not true.
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