To make films, you need not just to watch films but know about several other art forms. You need to have a deep understanding of your life. You need to know about music, theatre, paintings, history and geography. You need to be aware of almost every aspect of this world that makes up our complex lives. You won’t attain it from somewhere; you can only gain it through experience, through living it. You should never have a light approach towards cinema.
Some young people come to me & say they have seen all the films that are released. But such people can never make good films. One should have some discriminatory knowledge. Many people think the director’s job is to find some rich man and somehow bait him into funding the film. This is such a cruel attitude, never do that.
Nothing’s going to happen to the people or the society if I don’t make films. I make films just for my artist’s ego—that I have to make a film and that people have to see it. Nothing beyond that.
There’s another question I ask myself a lot while making films: Why should people come and watch this film? I make the film only if I have an answer to this question. It’s not an exercise in futility.
~ Adoor Gopalakrishnan
Comments