December 13, 2006 by webmaster.

Talk a great deal about it before you do your work, very little while you work, and not at all after.

John Ford in a famous interview with Peter Bogdanovich: Clapper Loader: (off camera): Eleven, take one.

Ford: Take one? It won’t take more than one take will it? Shoot.

Bogdanovich: Mr. Ford, I’ve noticed that your view of the west has become increasingly sad and melancholy over the years. Comparing, for instance Wagon Master with The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, have you been aware of your change in mood?

Ford: No. No.

Bogdanovich: Now that I’ve pointed that out, is there anything you’d like to say about it?

Ford: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Bogdanovich: Can I ask you what particular element about the western appealed to you from the beginning?

Ford: I wouldn’t know.

Bogdanovich: Would you agree that the point of Fort Apache was that the tradition of the army was more important than the individual?

Ford: Cut!

At this point Ford gets up and leaves.

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December 13, 2006 by webmaster.

On Patience … for an artist

When considering analysis, discussion, or presentation, listen to your inner self and to your feelings every time. Should you be mistaken, after all, the natural growth of your inner life will guide you slowly and in good time to other conclusions. Allow your judgments their own quiet, undisturbed development, which, as with all progress, must come from deep within and can in no way be forced or hastened.  All things consist of carrying to term and then giving birth. To allow the completion of every impression, every germ of a feeling deep within, in darkness, beyond words, in the realm of instinct unattainable by logic, to await humbly and patiently the hour of the descent of a new clarity: that alone is to live one’s art, in the realm of understanding as in that of creativity.

In this there is no measuring with time. A year doesn’t matter; ten years are nothing. To be an artist means not to compute or count; it means to ripen as the tree, which does not force its sap, but stands unshaken in the storms of spring with no fear that summer might not follow. It will come regardless. But it comes only to those who live as though eternity stretches before them, carefree, silent, and endless. I learn it daily, learn it with many pains, for which I am grateful: Patience is all !

Rainer Maria Rilke (from Letters To A Young Poet)

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