Everything is so finite but that’s what makes our time and specific moments so important.
Ethan HawkeRead
One of the things that separates a good genre movie from a bad genre movie, I always think, ironically, is when you care about the people. The dime a dozen ones are where you don't have any awareness of the character.
Interpretation
A good genre movie engages the audience by developing characters that evoke empathy.
Ethan Hawke highlights the importance of character development in genre films, suggesting that emotional investment in characters often distinguishes quality movies from mediocre ones. The best genre films create a connection with the audience, making them care about the characters, which is lacking in the less impactful ones.
In practice
In a film class discussion, you might reference this quote when analyzing the impact of character development on viewer engagement.
Everything is so finite but that’s what makes our time and specific moments so important.
We all have this fantasy of finding our one true love who's going to be the perfect fit. It's just not a reality.
If you can understand the inner life, then you can wear the uniform, the tattoos, or whatnot and realize that the things that are different about us become superficial.
There's something about knowing life is finite that makes it so precious.
I think it's my job to risk looking foolish. One of the things I've learned from the actors I've worked with is you don't get something for nothing. If you don't risk looking foolish, you'll never do anything special.
In all of our society, but especially in Hollywood, there is an obsession with perfection that can lead to self-loathing and neurosis and all that kind of stuff.
I wish I could write a beautiful book to break those hearts that are soon to cease to exist: a book of faith and small neat worlds and of people who live by the philosophies of popular songs.
Write because you love it and not because it is something that you think you should do. Always write about something or somebody you know about - something that you feel deeply and passionately about. Never try and force it.
If you can see yourself as an artist, and you can see that your life is your own creation, then why not create the most beautiful story for yourself?
It doubles your perception, to write from the point of view of someone you're not.
In the future, you won't buy artists' works; you'll buy software that makes original pieces of 'their' works, or that recreates their way of looking at things. You could buy a Shostakovich box, or you could buy a Brahms box. You might want some Shostakovich slow-movement-like music to be generated. So then you use that box.
Every fine story must leave in the mind of the sensitive reader an intangible residuum of pleasure, a cadence, a quality of voice that is exclusively the writer's own, individual, unique.
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