We all steal, but if we're smart we steal from great directors. Then, we can call it influence.
Interpretation
Emulating the work of great creators is a smart way to develop one's own style.
This quote highlights the idea that all artists borrow ideas and inspiration from those who came before them. It suggests that rather than simply copying, one should draw from the influences of great creators to develop a unique voice, thus transforming what could be seen as theft into a respectful homage or influence.
In practice
This quote could be shared in an art class discussion about inspiration and originality.
For 6,000 years, these rules have been unquestionably right. And yet we break them every day. People feel that something is wrong in life. There is some kind of atmosphere that makes people now turn to other values. They want to contemplate the basic questions of life, and that is probably the real reason for wanting to tell these stories.
Things have changed for the worse. That's why former eastern bloc countries are electing communists again. We are missing them and longing for the times we cursed before.
Documentaries deal with people who live real, everyday lives. But if these people trusted us and told us the truth about their lives, it could be used against them - which sometimes happened.
I like chance meetings - life is full of them. Every day, without realising it, I pass people whom I should know.
Someone knocks at the door of an apartment to borrow salt or sugar, people run into each other in the elevator, and in this way become inscribed in the spectator's memory.
The television industry doesn't like to see the compexity of the world. It prefers simple reporting, with simple ideas: this is white, that's black; this is good, that's bad.
Film is truth 24 times a second, and every cut is a lie.
Writing is simply something you must do. It's rather like virtue in that it is its own reward.
It's kind of a subversive act to tell a story of a woman past a certain age, to develop a four-hour movie based on a marriage and a story of two people past middle age.
I can write a poem in 10 minutes. I like writing songs; I can write songs in 5 or 10 minutes. My concentration seems very short.
Have a strong vision about the story you want to tell and how you want to tell it.
I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.