I’ve never been certain whether the moral of the Icarus story should only be, as is generally accepted, ‘don’t try to fly too high,’ or whether it might also be thought of as ‘forget the wax and feathers, and do a better job on the wings.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the dual nature of the Icarus story, suggesting both caution and the importance of preparation.
In this quote, Stanley Kubrick explores the moral of the Icarus myth, traditionally viewed as a warning against overambition. However, he suggests an alternative interpretation that emphasizes the importance of skills and preparation, indicating that success also requires the right tools and capabilities to achieve lofty goals.
In practice
In a motivational speech to encourage students to pursue their dreams while being prepared.
The reality of the final moment, just before shooting [the scene], is so powerful that all previous analysis must yield before the impressions you receive under these circumstances, and unless you use this feedback to your positive advantage, unless you adjust to it, adapt to it and accept the sometimes terrifying weaknesses it can expose, you can never realize the most out of your film.
Because I direct films, I have to live in a major English-speaking production center. That narrows it down to three places: Los Angeles, New York and London. I like New York, but it's inferior to London as a production center. Hollywood is best, but I don't like living there.
I've never achieved spectacular success with a film. My reputation has grown slowly. I suppose you could say that I'm a successful filmmaker-in that a number of people speak well of me. But none of my films have received unanimously positive reviews, and none have done blockbuster business.
A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.
The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.
Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write 'War and Peace' in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling.
He who replies to words of doubt doth put the light of knowledge out.
I've seen a lot in my life. I've seen a lot of winning. I've seen a lot of testing times. I think when you're tested, you really find out what you're made of, OK?
Hoping a situation will change keeps you at a distance from your true feelings-sadness, anger, fear. Each of these feelings is best appreciated up close. Feel them deeply, and they will cease to bother you. Hope they'll go away, and they'll bother you all day.
Practicing discipline involves continually working to find space in our patterns, to find the gaps in the images we hold about ourselves. It also means finding the gaps in our ideas about others, releasing images that we hold about a manager, a coworker, a friend, or a partner.
Sometimes the simplest and best use of our will is to drop it all and just walk out from under everything that is covering us, even if only for an hour or so—just walk out from under the webs we've spun, the tasks we've assumed, the problems we have to solve. They'll be there when we get back, and maybe some of them will fall apart without our worry to hold them up.
If you simply take up the attitude of defending a mistake, there will no hope of improvement.
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