If a story doesn't give you a hard-on in the first couple of scenes, throw it in the goddamned garbage.
Interpretation
A compelling story should evoke strong feelings from the start.
This quote by Samuel Fuller emphasizes the importance of immediate emotional engagement in storytelling. If a narrative fails to captivate or provoke a visceral reaction within the initial scenes, it is regarded as unworthy of continued attention, suggesting that impactful storytelling is essential for creating a successful narrative.
In practice
A filmmaker might use this quote when discussing the need for exciting openings in screenplays.
I don't care if it's a mystery story, a Western, or the story of Julius Caesar. To me it's the emotion, the lies, the double-cross, whether it's Brutus doing it to Caesar or Bob Stack doing it to Robert Ryan that defines what kind of drama it is.
A film is like a battleground. It's love, hate, action, violence, death—In one word, emotions.
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.
Every great or even every very good writer makes the world over according to his own specifications.
With stammering lips and insufficient sound I strive and struggle to deliver right the music of my nature.
Good poetry and successful revolution change our lives. And you cannot compose a good poem or wage a revolution without changing consciousness unless you attack the language that you share with your enemies and invent a language that you share with your allies.
If you do something, you should do it because you love it, and you should follow your heart and make it how your heart wants it to be made. But it's a difficult world, especially for musicians.
It is the task of the translator to release in his own language that pure language that is under the spell of another, to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his re-creation of that work.
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