Saturday, January 14, 2006

Simple is Strong

The title of this post is something the late, great Scottish filmmaker Bill Douglas used to have as something of a mantra whenever he was working on a film or a script. As I want this film to be something of a return to basics, it's a phrase I think I would do well to recall as often as possible. I also want to study again not just his films, but also those by filmmakers who have consistently used this as a working principle: Bresson, above all, but also Kieslowski, whose relentless paring down was also coupled with a fairly high emotional charge (the same could be said of Bill's films). Of course, I do not want to compare myself to any of these people, but their work is something I think we can keep in mind during the run-up to the shoot.

I may of course post my own mantras, once I can think of some...

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