A NOTE ON IDEAS AND MEANS OF ITS REALIZATION

THE IDEA

  

  When you read about another new film you often see: "I wanted to show what people like my main hero feel".  I think there's a danger in making the "what it's like" option leading in the film. A danger of cheaping your film. And what's the point in bringing on screen cheap ideas? Profit? But if you make something eternal, you'll get much more profit and fame and love in years and years after the release, not just this season. 

   So, I wish filmmakers weren't afraid to show big ideas in films. The special ideas. Unusual truth of life. For example, Tackeray's "Vanity Fair". You can make accent on the idea how hard the life was back then. Especially woman's life (either with or without social status) and how ridiculous is this title following. But isn't it a story about the importance of following your goals, seeing things and people objectilely, importance of trying to make your life better (especially if you don't have the benefits that everybody else have)? Doesn't Tackeray hide a fine irony between the lines about the similarity of  all this vanity fair and following stupid (false) virtue, mythical feelings and ideals?

THE MEANS OF REALIZATION

    Everything that we see in the frame is a realization of the big idea that you put in your film. So, what is the best location for the dialogue of your characters? The bar? The park? Or maybe, apartment? Whatever it is, the most important thing is not to make it look like a standard, "real" apartment or bar. Because everything that we see influents on our impression from this dialogue and the whole film and it's idea. So, not only people, everything should have it's character (or express human's character), should act - walls, tables, chairs, sky... The best films of all times are made with such principle. Remember Holly Gollightly's apartment in "Breakfast at Tiffany's". If you don't do this - whatever is around, even if it's super-expressive, if it doesn't express your big idea - it's just the space, filled with dead things. And, (the worst and the most frequent thing that happens to films) deathly boring. 

A few days ago I read a delightful article of Oscar Wilde, "The truth of masks". When I read this, I realized that he was even finer and greater philosopher and artist than I ever thought (And I thought really good about him). What a great taste for artistic nature! What a great wisdom! Reading this article really helped me to understand my filmmaking style more than any modern book or "working professional". So, I take a bow to my teacher and represent you the main points of "The truth of masks":

• there is absolutely no dramatist of the French, English, or Athenian stage who relies so much for his illusionist effects on the dress of his actors as Shakespear
• The value of the costume is twofold, picturesque and dramatic; the former depends on the colour of the dress, the latter on its design and character.e does himself. And, valuable as beauty of effect on the stage is, the highest beauty is not merely comparable with absolute accuracy of detail, but really dependent on it.
• and as for Juliet, a modern playwright would probably have laid her out in her shroud, and made the scene a scene of horror merely, but Shakespeare arrays her in rich and gorgeous raiment, whose loveliness makes the vault 'a feasting presence full of light,' turns the tomb into a bridal chamber, and gives the cue and motive for Romeo's speech of the triumph of Beauty over Death.
• but nobody from the mere details of apparel and adornment has ever drawn such irony of contrast, such immediate and tragic effect, such pity and such pathos, as Shakespeare himself.
• costume could be made at once impressive of a certain effect on the audience and expressive of certain types of character, and is one of the essential factors of the means which a true illusionist has at his disposal.
• and showing us, by the colour and character of Claudian's dress, and the dress of his attendants, the whole nature and life of the man, from what school of philosophy he affected, down to what horses he backed on the turf.
• Art, and art only, can make archaeology beautiful; and the theatric art can use it most directly and most vividly, for it can combine in one exquisite presentation the illusion of actual life with the wonder of the unreal world.
• For archaeology, being a science, is neither good nor bad, but a fact simply. Its value depends entirely on how it is used, and only an artist can use it. We look to the archaeologist for the materials, to the artist for the method.
• it was a means by which they could touch the dry dust of antiquity into the very breath and beauty of life, and fill with the new wine of romanticism forms that else had been old and outworn.
• Of course the aesthetic value of Shakespeare's plays does not, in the slightest degree, depend on their facts, but on their Truth, and Truth is independent of facts always, inventing or selecting them at pleasure. But still Shakespeare's use of facts is a most interesting part of his method of work, and shows us his attitude towards the stage, and his relations to the great art of illusion.
• A great work of dramatic art should not merely be made expressive of modern passion by means of the actor, but should be presented to us in the form most suitable to the modern spirit.
• Perfect accuracy of detail, for the sake of perfect illusion, is necessary for us. What we have to see is that the details are not allowed to usurp the principal place. They must be subordinate always to the general motive of the play. But subordination in art does not mean disregard of truth; it means conversion of fact into effect, and assigning to each detail its proper relative value
  archaeology on the stage, and whose plays, though absolutely correct in detail, are known to all for their passion, not for their pedantry--for their life, not for their learning.
• Art has no other aim but her own perfection, and proceeds simply by her own laws
• Better to take pleasure in a rose than to put its root under a microscope.
• The true dramatist, in fact, shows us life under the conditions of art, not art in the form of life. But it is not enough that a dress should be accurate; it must be also appropriate to the stature and appearance of the actor, and to his supposed condition, as well as to his necessary action in the play.More dress rehearsals would also be of value in explaining to the actors that there is a form of gesture and movement that is not merely appropriate to each style of dress, but really conditioned by it.
• The facts of art are diverse, but the essence of artistic effect is unity.
• There may be division of labour, but there must be no division of mind. In fact, in art there is no specialism, and a really artistic production should bear the impress of one master, and one master only, who not merely should design and arrange everything, but should have complete control over the way in which each dress is to be worn.

And, my favourite one,

• For in art there is no such thing as a universal truth. A Truth in art is that whose contradictory is also true. And just as it is only in art- criticism, and through it, that we can apprehend the Platonic theory of ideas, so it is only in art-criticism, and through it, that we can realise Hegel's system of contraries. The truths of metaphysics are the truths of masks.

I could add a lot of my understanding of these lines, but I won't. I love it like this. Let it be just a quote of the precious Master thoughts. Plus your very own perception of it.