There is certainly a part of my filmmaking that harkens to a more simpler commercial kind of taste, but then with this there's certainly a kind of avant-garde, abstract, existential element to it.
I don't know how you make decisions in your life, but I weigh lots of things, and it's not always the purest of things for why I take a job or do this. I always try to think of the many different factors in my life, and not one is pure greed. One is pure quality of life.
When I'm writing a movie, it's usually pretty close to what the movie is going to be, which is just a luxury of being a writer-director.
That's what film can do in a way that TV and other long-form storytelling can't. It gives you this very immersive moment.
I think my films kind of walk this line that I'm proud of, that they feel sort of like films of my youth, which were far more commercial.
When I have people around, I'm a chatterbox. But when I'm alone, I never speak. I don't talk to myself; it's just not my schtick.
The original Spencer Tracy version of 'The Old Man and the Sea' was always terribly flawed because of the over-reliance on voice over, but it's still a beautiful movie.
The original Spencer Tracy version of 'The Old Man and the Sea' was always terribly flawed because of the over-reliance on voice over, but it's still a beautiful movie.
To have a second movie that you're proud of and that actually turned out the way you wanted, shot by shot, I realize I'm probably going to be able to do this for a little while for my living.
I don't know how you make decisions in your life, but I weigh lots of things, and it's not always the purest of things for why I take a job or do this. I always try to think of the many different factors in my life, and not one is pure greed. One is pure quality of life.
To have a second movie that you're proud of and that actually turned out the way you wanted, shot by shot, I realize I'm probably going to be able to do this for a little while for my living.
As a writer, I had learned a lot on 'Margin Call' about embracing the weaknesses of a narrative and of a project. A story always has an inherent narrative weakness.
As a writer, I had learned a lot on 'Margin Call' about embracing the weaknesses of a narrative and of a project. A story always has an inherent narrative weakness.
I did not grow up a cinefile. No one in my family was in the film business or even anything close to it.
Just making a movie the way 'All is Lost' had to be made was a great experience, because it was structured differently than any other film I will make for the rest of my life.
I had decent but not great grades in high school because I was highly motivated in some subjects, like the arts, drama, English, and history, but in math and science I was a screw-up. Wooster saw something in me, and I really flourished there. I got into theatre, took photography and painting classes.