Can Filmmakers Run Out of Ideas and What Should They Do About it?
Wim Wenders circa 1988.
This is why there are books to adapt. When you run out of ideas, just steal someone elses (Scorsese, ect…)
Herschell Gordon Lewis quit making films to become a salesman. He basically got bored making the movies he was making and didn’t think they were bringing in enough money anymore.
—PolarisDiB
“A director makes only one movie in his life. Then he breaks it into pieces and makes it again.” (Jean Renoir)
I was about to quote the great Renoir, but was beaten to it.
He had some great observations about how an artist who paints say a leaf from his mental construction or memory is doomed to repeat himself, whereas to the open observer nature offers an infinite variety.
I guess he meant an artist has to keep his antennae out for stimuli or else he’s bound to be limited in scope and concerns. Sometimes the heart of a directors films will stay consistent even if the surface subject matter changes.
The make up of life has been the same since the beginning of time… love/hate/good/evil. I think at the end of the day those are the main Ideas.
But how do these Ideas exhust?
“A director makes only one movie in his life. Then he breaks it into pieces and makes it again.” (Jean Renoir)
Thank God somebody posted this. I heard Almodovar say it once but I think he quoted it to Bergman and I’ts been bugging me forever. Bergman certainly did do the same movie over and over. The Cohens are masters at it.
They can and they should quit.
@ parks
You hit the nail on the head about Wenders, WTF? Wings, and Paris in my top 100 of all time. What happened to him??
If Directors get stuck, they can always adapt good books if they can get the rights???
Nathan W said, “This is why there are books to adapt. When you run out of ideas, just steal someone elses (Scorsese, ect…)”
I know the thread implies that not having any ideas is the main problem I’m exploring, but I’m actually suggesting something different. The problem is not that the filmmaker has run out of ideas so much as he/she has expressed all the ideas/stories/issues the felt the necessity to express. This is based on the premise that some filmmakers (and artists) feel make films (art) because they feel compelled to express specific ideas/stories/issues through their chosen medium. What I’m suggesting is the possibility that some filmmakers may reach a point where they have adequately expressed these ideas/stories/issues. So the problem, in this specific situation, is not that the filmmaker has “run out of ideas” so much as they have “run of ideas” they are passionate about; that they feel personally connected to and feel compelled to express through film. That is the situation.
Do you guys think that happens? Does it happen to all filmmakers at some point? And when it does, what should the filmmaker do? Would every be OK if the filmmaker made films about the things the filmmaker didn’t feel so passionate about that he/she felt compelled to make it?
If filmmakers are, as I assume, like other artists, many of them will eventually run into a dry spot during their careers, some may never come out of it and would indeed be better off giving up making films, others would do well to reinvest themselves into the regular flow of life and art for awhile without thinking about making more films of their own, and allow inspiration to rebuild and interest to redevelop itself. I’ve known a good numbers of artists in different fields of endeavor and they all have, at some point or another, believed they have run out of ideas, but after some time, they have come back to work again with either variations on the ideas they were working on before, or new areas of interest that take their work in different directions than before. Some prefer to just keep working, expecting the actual work of art to reinvigorate them and fearing stepping away would make it more difficult to return to their profession, and others have taken some time away and come back refreshed. It seems to me that it would depend entirely on the artist and their commitment to art as work and a profession or as something more simply like a mood of expression in which there are things they want to say, and once they are said, they are satisfied.
the earlier film ideas are closer 2 childhood memories and show the discoveries the filmmaker has made up 2 that point in time
i believe that these ideas are a foundation that can actually help make new ideas and a new idea can only come from life experience
is that the titanic in the background :O(
regarding Woody Allen, sure some of his movies are similar to his others. Match Point is kind of a streamlined version of Crimes and Misdemeanors, Whatever Works copies various situations, characters and even jokes from a number of his other films. Mel Brooks is the same way a lot of his comedies use the same sort of jokes and situations again and again. They are still artists, some artists make the same work over and over in different ways (Bukowski was kind of like that). As long as the movies are good, and I think 19 out of every twenty Woody films are good then what is the harm. The flip side of this is someone like Ed Burns who has directed the same movie again and again (themselves copies of Woody Allen) none of which were very good.
Lift a glass to the studio system.
Jazzaloha
There’s a theory that filmmakers (and artists in general) make films out of necessity. Often they have a particular story(s), idea or concern that they have to get off their chest. In addition, they don’t really know any other way to adequately express this idea, etc. than through films (or their chosen medium). But is it possible that a filmmaker reaches a point when they’re expressed all the ideas, stories, concerns that they are passionate about? And, if so, what should a filmmaker do at that point. The title may suggest that I’m looking for ways a filmmaker can generate new ideas, but I’m actually taking a different tack. What I would throw out for consideration is the idea that the filmmaker find another line of work. That may sound harsh, but if the thing that made you a filmmaker no longer exists, than isn’t the honest choice to stop making films?
Btw, there are certain filmmakers that come to mind when I think of this. (And this is going to sound like I’m starting this thread to gleefully bash directors, but I’m not.) Oliver Stone, for one. He was a Vietnam veteran and he was very much concerned with the politics of the 60s. One could argue that once he made films that dealt with those subjects, the quality of his films declined. (I don’t know if I agree with that, but I’m throwing that out there.)
Another director I think of is Woody Allen. He really just seems to be repeating himself—and recent films (I’d say after the 80s), for the most part, seem flat and uninteresting.
What do you guys think?