Gary Huff
1
COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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[Jason Roberts] “I have no interest in being “right” with someone I do not know and will never meet – I don’t have that interest with most people I know, to be honest. “
You should be right if you want to teach, because if you’re wrong, then what is the value of what you are teaching?
I do agree with the breakdown, but in no way does it mean that someone who is successful at the former cannot transition that to the latter.
I don’t disagree that there is a lot of subjectivity in topics of this nature, but if you want to position Welles as having no experience then you are sadly mistaken. You should not just sum up what he brought to the experience that eliminates the nuance of what went down, nor should you simply ignore that Tolland literally brought the difference between theatrical staging and directing the audiences’ eyes in the way that film does and lay all of that success on Welles. In fact, I think auteur attitudes would do your students a great disservice in not discussing the equal contributions of everyone who was involved, from Toland having a “fresh” director that allowed his suggestions to be implemented for the visual style, Robert Wise’s editing (a man who went on to also leave his mark on cinema), to Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead, Everett Sloane and others, many of which were very experienced and undoubtedly their performance was a mixture of Welles’ direction and their own suggestions and ideas.
[Jason Roberts] “You know, I love it when a director doesn’t “know any better”, and amazing stuff happens as a result(Citizen Kane, anyone?). “
I just really dislike this attitude, because a) it’s not born out by the actual facts and b) it plays to the anti-education bias that America suffers from. “All those “edumacated” people couldn’t churn out anything classic like Citizen Kane at the time. It’s all street smarts!” when instead, the actual truth of the matter, is that a very technically-minded craftsman like Toland, someone who was very excited by all the new filmmaking technology of the time, wanted someone who wouldn’t fight him on his ideas to try to implement something new, and the lightening in the bottle gave him an interesting script by someone who wasn’t already integrated into the studio system. And let’s not forget that Welles is not simply a man who only knows theatre and radio. Surely he went to the movies just like anyone else, and with his mind probably studied what he saw and what worked and what did not, and thus had a grasp on the differences before he stepped one foot onto set.
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[Todd Terry] “Children… please…. quit sniping like a bunch of six year olds.”
Oh please, get over yourself. Did you really think it was proper judgement call to come out of the gate acting like a 12-year old playing everyone’s mommy?
[Todd Terry] “Welles’ first film is considered his masterpiece, and many would argue that nothing else in the following two-thirds of a century even came close. Which is actually a bit sad.”
Perhaps because other people who made Citizen Kane what it was, and were overlooked, weren’t along for the rest? Perhaps how there’s a huge drop-off in quality as the Star Wars films continued on and key people who made the first two what they were moved on? I would say that what Toland meant with “fresh eyes” is inexperience that wouldn’t fight him on very suggestion. That’s what I would mean if I wanted a “fresh” director. And Toland’s style was not dictated by Welles, it was well evident before he came on the scene.
What Welles primarily brought was the tenacity to write and film a piece essentially lampooning one of the most powerful men in the U.S. at that time, and paints a fascinating, if fictional, portrait of someone with that level of control.
[Todd Terry] ” it’s a bit akin to commissioning a piece from a gifted artist renowned for his oil landscapes… but this time you are wanting a sculpture. Of a person. In bronze. The talent transcends to a degree, but it’s still a very very different medium.”
It’s not at all that different that your analogy would imply. Welles successfully translated from stage to radio as well, but why, for some odd reason, does that not seem such a ridiculous jump? If you have a talented, experienced cinematographer who can keep you from staging everything like a play (although there are plenty of staged moments in Kane), then what is left that is explicitly different from directing stage vs directing cinema?
In fact, I would say the blending of experiences in stage and radio is what made him perfectly situated to make a film in the first place. The stage experience with visuals and blocking, the radio experience for dialogue (especially in overlapping dialogue, something he experimented with during his tenure in radio), and this helps from dating his film by giving it a modern feel just from the sound work alone.
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[Jason Roberts] “I am referring to Wells as a first-time director”
He was by no means a first time director on Citizen Kane. He was very experienced in both stage and radio at this point.
And Toland was the DP, not the producer.
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[Jason Roberts] “You know, I love it when a director doesn’t “know any better”, and amazing stuff happens as a result(Citizen Kane, anyone?). “
Which isn’t true. Everyone had a lot of experience by the time it came to Citizen Kane, they weren’t a bunch of newbies who had never done anything similar before.
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Thanks for posting this. I was able to go through the presentation over the course of the last couple of days.
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[Michael Gissing] “Read Walter’s response. He seems to be able to follow my thoughts.”
I think he’s more comparing Windows to Linux. My response is to something else entirely.
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[Michael Gissing] ” Apple is forcing OS upgrades to make sure the latest version of X is optimal.”
I thought we were talking about Resolve.
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[Michael Gissing] “WIN7 Pro 64bit has been so robust for me that the decision of OS is really about other software, not the OS. It seems the Apple OS is causing more grief with quicktime, older software back compatibility etc.”
The problem with this is that you’re comparing a situation while you sit on an OS from 2009. That would be Snow Leopard by comparison. If you want to talk about grief and backward compatibility, why not install WIndows 10 and get back with us?
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[Aaron Star] “The C100 has a native ISO of 850, which means you could double that before seeing noise compared to other cameras.”
Yes, but the A7S has a native Slog2 ISO of 3200.
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[David Payne] “Which would you choose?”
I would choose the C100 because it has a better overall image at 1080 and you have lenses for free already.