I often find in the film world, that it's very self-referring. If you talk to someone about films, they talk about them in terms of other films - rather than as something that happened to them in their life. And I'm really keen to get back to film as a reference to real things, not necessarily to other films.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of relating films to real-life experiences rather than just referencing other films.
In this quote, Steven Knight reflects on the tendency of filmmakers and critics to discuss cinema through the lens of other films, suggesting that this approach distances the medium from genuine human experiences. He advocates for a return to storytelling that draws upon real-life events and emotions, highlighting the power of film to reflect authentic life rather than being confined by its own industry narratives.
In practice
Use this quote in a discussion about the importance of authentic storytelling in films.
Making a film is hard because you're not dealing with the intangible. When you're writing, it's perfect because it's only in your head and then you have to take it into the physical world and that's where things drop off and things fall apart and you have to fix them.
The whole process of filmmaking can be chaotic, but if you can have an enthusiastic cast, you're pretty much there.
A work of art when placed in a gallery loses its charge, and becomes a portable object or surface disengaged from the outside world.
I understand that people want to just listen to a track and put it on their iPod, and that's fine, there's nothing wrong with that, but why can't that exist hand in hand with an album? They're such different experiences.
If you get hold of a head of hair on somebody you've never seen before, cut beautiful shapes, cut beautiful architectural angles and she walks out looking so different - I think that's masterful.
Poems infatuated with their own smarts and detached from any emotional grounding can leave the reader feeling lonely, empty and ashamed for having expected more. Like icy adolescents, such poetry is more interested in commiserating than acknowledging that feelings — the sentiments that make us susceptible to sentimentality — actually exist.
For me personally, Elliott Carter was and remains one of the most meaningful composers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries because he represents substance. He was the living proof of uncompromising, complex music, which at first seems inaccessible. But it becomes accessible if one digs in and sees the development through.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore--While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As if some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door--Only this and nothing more.
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