What's important is the way we say it. Art is all about craftsmanship. Others can interpret craftsmanship as style if they wish. Style is what unites memory or recollection, ideology, sentiment, nostalgia, presentiment, to the way we express all that. It's not what we say but how we say it that matters.
Interpretation
The essence of art lies in the expression and craftsmanship rather than the actual content being conveyed.
In this quote, Federico Fellini emphasizes that the artistry of communication is defined by the way in which ideas and emotions are expressed, rather than just the ideas themselves. He believes that craftsmanship and style play a crucial role in how our memories and sentiments are conveyed, suggesting that the form of expression is as important as the content.
In practice
This quote can be used in a lecture about the importance of artistic expression in creative writing workshops.
I’m just a storyteller, and the cinema happens to be my medium. I like it because it recreates life in movement, enlarges it, enhances it, distills it. For me, it’s far closer to the miraculous creation of life than, say, a painting or music or even literature. It’s not just an art form; it’s actually a new form of life, with its own rhythms, cadences, perspectives and transparencies. It’s my way of telling a story.
Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years can pass in a second, and you can hop from one place to another. It's a language made of image. And in the real cinema, every object and every light means something, as in a dream.
No critic writing about a film could say more than the film itself, although they do their best to make us think the oppposite.
A created thing is never invented and it is never true: it is always and ever itself.
We can all pretend to be cynical and scheming, but when we’re faced with purity and innocence, the cynical mask drops off.
What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one... It’s this in-between that I’m calling a province, this frontier country between the tangible world and the intangible one - which is really the realm of the artist.
We shouldn't be copying what we see. We should try to find our own sense of style, to believe in ourselves.
All architecture has a public nature, I believe, so I would like to make a public space.
Actors are basically drag queens. People will tell you they act because they want to heal mankind or, you know, explore the nature of the human psyche. Yes, maybe. But basically we just want to put on a frock and dance.
I feel like the writers that I'm drawn to, the writers that I really cling to, are the writers who seem to be writing out of a desperate act. It's like their writing is part of a survival kit. Those are the writers that I just absolutely cherish and carry with me everywhere I go.
To win applause one must write stuff so simple that a coachman might sing it.
It is through the intentionality of poetic imagination that the poet's soul discovers the opening of consciousness common to all true poetry.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.