| I have to admit I've
felt a bit conflicted about making overarching philosophical statements on
cinema because it seems like a fruitless (and perhaps destructive)
task to try to pin down the boundaries of good art. I suppose that the
divine secrets of good filmmaking, like any Zen riddle, necessarily
contain their opposites--the moment I announce that the process defines
the product, suddenly the reverse becomes apparent to me; the moment I
champion emotionality over intellectualism, I think of my abiding love for
David Cronenberg and think perhaps I am exactly wrong.
Well. My understanding of quantum
physics is, let's say, limited, but I believe it provides a decent
metaphor: light can be observed as a particle or as a wave (right?), but
once you observe it as one you lose the ability to observe it as the other
(is this basically accurate?). Which of course does not mean that it is
only one or the other, just that, by observing it you have limited your
own ability to perceive whatever its "totality" may be. And
that's like the pragmatic process of filmmaking: your guiding philosophies
are all right and wrong at the same time and you have to be savvy and
naive and analyze it and ignore it all at once.
...I think that everything I have
just written here is basically true, but I would also feel remiss if I did
not advise you to disregard it...
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