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> Cinema is a collaborative art, and auteurist accounts that centre the director’s vision often seem at odds with the actual process of film-making. But Stanley

> Cinema is a collaborative art, and auteurist accounts that centre the director’s vision often seem at odds with the actual process of film-making. But Stanley Kubrick was a special case; a director who won an astonishing degree of autonomy from the Hollywood studios that financed his films and used it to control almost every aspect of those films: the scripts, the performances, the lighting and camerawork, the mise en scène down to the smallest details of sets and props, the gradations of colour in the prints, how the films were promoted and, later, even the typefaces on the boxes of VHS and DVD releases I wonder at directors: It's hard enough to find artists with the insight, vision, expressiveness, and mastery of their craft to create great art. But before film, artists worked mostly alone. I suppose architects and composers have had to be mindful of the performance of a bunch of humans, but didn't necessarily have to manage that process. Stage directors obviously have similar jobs, but necessarily at a much smaller scale, with fewer technical demands, and by my limited understanding, stage directors lean toward overseeing and facilitating the art, which is more a product of the playwright and actors. But film directors - as artists they must be all those things an artist is; and also they must master more domains than most artists - film, audio, script, story, costumes, sets, lighting, etc.; and on top of that they must be top-notch managers: hire and manage hundreds or thousands of highly talented people (just look at the credits), and then coordinate them all to finish on time and also manage a budget in the 10s or 100s of millions, and then also sell their vision to funders. Where are these 'directors' found? Can they really do all that or is it handled otherwise? How are they developed? It's hard to imagine there would be more than a couple of them.

wizardwes 3y ago
I'd say that most of those things you list film directors needing to worry about are just as important to stage directors, but also, film directors have crew and other experts to fill a lot of those gaps. Directors aren't writing scripts, there are scriptwriter for that, just like playwrights, the director just gets some input, which happens in live theater right now. I know a director who is having to edit the script of Hamlet himself right now due to time constraints. A film director doesn't necessarily need to know everything they just need to be able to vocalize their wants and vision to other people who know more, and be able to receive feedback from that. Also, to my knowledge, directors aren't hiring everyone. They might pick a few key people, but that's why you have producers, and you let your key people pick their people under them.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  What do you think of my comments on stage directors in the GP (rather than my pedantically repeating them). Also, more delegation requires substituting more management skill for artistic skill - and IME many highly talented people hate to delegate for that reason. I am neither film nor stage director nor actor, but here is Lawrence Olivier, highly accomplished and respected in both mediums, on the differences: "Now the sense of continuity in the film is provided by the director, who says that was too quiet, or that was too loud, or that was too much, or that was too slow. Now an actor on the stage is supposed to conduct it much more for himself. The director in a stage play, he can do two things, I think, principally ...: He can give the play a point of view, which he can sell to the actors. His principle task is to make quite sure that the author is served to his best advantage, and the actors are served to their best advantage. And at the same time, he can describe, without setting, because this will vary according to performance, according to audience, but he can desribe what he thinks is the right tempo for each scene, or the comparative tempos between two scenes, three scenes, four scenes, five scenes, etc. Whereas the director of the film is the absolute magician, who is in charge and knows the answer to every question right from the beginning of the film to the last. In directing a film, people say, 'would it be alright if she wore a red hat?' Well, simply means that you have to split your mind to every single shot that could possibly affect that situation, right to the beginning of the film, right to the end of the film, before you say, 'I don't care' or 'yes' or 'no'. It's a very precise arrangement, altogether, in a film." From a 1973 interview: https://www.criterionchannel.com/videos/laurence-olivier-and-dick-cavett-in-conversation https://www.criterionchannel.com/videos/laurence-olivier-and...
  - wizardwes 3y ago
    To me, that reads largely as an organizational difference, and one of the few areas that does largely differ. In live theater, everything occurs in order, and especially in more contained plays, props stay where they're left between uses, or there is a scene change, during the time jump within the prop moving doesn't matter. Not so much with movies, so I can definitely grant that difference. However, I think some of this can also put the cart before the horse. In live theater, you really can't enforce your precise vision of the play. Things happen, and actors have to take it into their own hands. Someone drops a line, a glass shatters mid-scene and creates a hazard. That's the delegation a stage director does. A film director though, can re-take most shots, pick the one that matches their vision best, but with that creative control comes that excess cognitive load the quote mentions.

wizardwes 3y ago

I'd say that most of those things you list film directors needing to worry about are just as important to stage directors, but also, film directors have crew and other experts to fill a lot of those gaps. Directors aren't writing scripts, there are scriptwriter for that, just like playwrights, the director just gets some input, which happens in live theater right now. I know a director who is having to edit the script of Hamlet himself right now due to time constraints. A film director doesn't necessarily need to know everything they just need to be able to vocalize their wants and vision to other people who know more, and be able to receive feedback from that. Also, to my knowledge, directors aren't hiring everyone. They might pick a few key people, but that's why you have producers, and you let your key people pick their people under them.

wolverine876 3y ago
What do you think of my comments on stage directors in the GP (rather than my pedantically repeating them). Also, more delegation requires substituting more management skill for artistic skill - and IME many highly talented people hate to delegate for that reason. I am neither film nor stage director nor actor, but here is Lawrence Olivier, highly accomplished and respected in both mediums, on the differences: "Now the sense of continuity in the film is provided by the director, who says that was too quiet, or that was too loud, or that was too much, or that was too slow. Now an actor on the stage is supposed to conduct it much more for himself. The director in a stage play, he can do two things, I think, principally ...: He can give the play a point of view, which he can sell to the actors. His principle task is to make quite sure that the author is served to his best advantage, and the actors are served to their best advantage. And at the same time, he can describe, without setting, because this will vary according to performance, according to audience, but he can desribe what he thinks is the right tempo for each scene, or the comparative tempos between two scenes, three scenes, four scenes, five scenes, etc. Whereas the director of the film is the absolute magician, who is in charge and knows the answer to every question right from the beginning of the film to the last. In directing a film, people say, 'would it be alright if she wore a red hat?' Well, simply means that you have to split your mind to every single shot that could possibly affect that situation, right to the beginning of the film, right to the end of the film, before you say, 'I don't care' or 'yes' or 'no'. It's a very precise arrangement, altogether, in a film." From a 1973 interview: https://www.criterionchannel.com/videos/laurence-olivier-and-dick-cavett-in-conversation https://www.criterionchannel.com/videos/laurence-olivier-and...
- wizardwes 3y ago
  To me, that reads largely as an organizational difference, and one of the few areas that does largely differ. In live theater, everything occurs in order, and especially in more contained plays, props stay where they're left between uses, or there is a scene change, during the time jump within the prop moving doesn't matter. Not so much with movies, so I can definitely grant that difference. However, I think some of this can also put the cart before the horse. In live theater, you really can't enforce your precise vision of the play. Things happen, and actors have to take it into their own hands. Someone drops a line, a glass shatters mid-scene and creates a hazard. That's the delegation a stage director does. A film director though, can re-take most shots, pick the one that matches their vision best, but with that creative control comes that excess cognitive load the quote mentions.