It is always a treat to watch a new film from writer-director Paul Schrader, one of America’s foundational thinkers of film form and foremost chroniclers of the nation’s moral and spiritual decay. Following his trilogy of Bresson-influenced character studies: First Reformed (2017), The Card Counter (2021) and Master Gardener (2022), Schrader has ventured into new territory with Oh, Canada (2024) both in form and content. As he enters, what will likely be his final suite of films Schrader has decided to confront his mortality, presenting the character of Leonard Fife (Richard Gere in the present day and Jacob Elordi in flashbacks), an acclaimed leftist documentary filmmaker who fled to Canada to escape the Vietnam draft. After agreeing to be put under the spotlight on his deathbed by his former students Leonard decides to use the framework of cinema to air out his demons, exposing the unacknowledged contradictions and failures that have defined his life. Grace still abounds but one tempered by a frank honesty as Schrader refuses to give his character an easy out.
Accompanying this is a distinct shift in visual palette, with the film adopting a warmer, film-inspired look. Hopping between time periods and aspect ratios Schrader embraces a visual complexity absent in his recent film, one facilitated by cinematographer Andrew Wonder (also director of 2019’s Feral and co-director of 2021’s PAUL SCHRADER, FUTURE OF MOVIES, 70TH BIENNALE DE VENEZIA), who I had a chance encounter with at the premiere of Sean Baker’s Palme D’Or winner Anora (2024).
Over lunch we chatted about his creative contributions to the film, how it evolved from pre to post, generational shifts in American cinema, his Salsa Theory of modern visual language, how he watched Bergman’s Persona (1966) 5 times in a row and of course, the future of cinema.
This interview has been edited for clarity
Matthew Chan: The film moves through so many different time periods, with each section having its own distinct look and feel, moving between widescreen and 3:2, black and white and color. How did you work with Paul to conceptualize the film visually?
Andrew Wonder: Oh man, it was pretty funny, I entered this project in an interesting way. I’ve known Paul for a long time. I used to type his scripts into the computer for him, I was a little bit beyond an assistant. We’ve co-directed films for Venice, I’ve done second unit for him, I’ve been around the edits and I always help with the scripts. I’ve kind of been around since I left school.
I had just sold my commercial production company out in LA and then Paul came to me, he saw a film I just made and he was like how did you do that? Did you cowboy that? Did you plan that? I was like I don’t know a little bit of each. It’s what I do, Paul, it’s very French. He said I got a new script, I don’t know how to do it, I want to know how you’d approach it. And so he gave me the script and I read it and I saw two things: I saw all the time periods and I saw how out of canon that was for Paul. It felt like a different format, which I saw him attempt on Master Gardener. I thought, okay, this isn’t his wheelhouse, there’s probably some new tools and some new tricks I can show him.
I feel like I know Paul Schrader the man better than I know Paul Schrader the filmmaker and I saw a script that was sensitive and had more of him in it than I’d ever read. And so I said to myself, how do I make something that’s visually clear but also brings out the sensitive man? If I could make this the first sensitive Paul Schrader film. I thought it could be something different for him. Something that really looked at people, gazed in their eyes, something that looked for the flower in the cement rather than the coldness of the notebook.
And so with that intention I saw the different aspect ratios. I wanted to mix the notions of the past and present. I thought the 3:2 aspect ratio and the feeling of mahogany, which really allowed you to stay with Richard Gere’s face, really let you do that kind of Bergman stuff and really be in there.
For the past my big inspiration was Fat City (1972). I found this really crazy faded print on YouTube that had the greatest yellow highlights and blue cyans. I was like, wow, this is something. And then there were all these memories that I called mosaic memories, that’s what became black and white. I was like, all right, I don’t want the audience to be confused, but Richard’s character was a filmmaker so I could use more expressionistic blocking and lighting. And since it was so much period stuff, I knew it’d be tough on the budget. So my thought was that black and white also made it easier for the production designer to focus on being graphic. There’s also all the de-aging and I just didn’t want to do it on the computer and I knew in black and white I could use filtration and lighting to achieve that intention. So I went to Paul with all those ideas at dinner and he said maybe you should shoot the movie. And I looked back to him, I said maybe I should, and the rest is history.
Both Master Gardener and The Card Counter were shot on digital and both have a sharp, unmistakably digital look. I feel like with Oh, Canada, even though it was also digital there was more of an attempt to emulate film. How did you go about doing that?
What I’ve always loved about celluloid is that it’s an act of faith. You know it’s alchemy. You put intention and science into a black box and if you have the right faith, you’re rewarded with beauty. I’ve always tried to approach digital the same way: by creating conflict.
I used to work for this great cinematographer named Harris Savides and I used to do film tests for him and other weird stuff. And he had such an attitude and such an approach that a few years ago, when I was working with the Alexa, he passed away and I was like what if I took that spirit and found my own path to this camera. The film would be very hard to grade to look any way else because of the way I exposed it akin to film. And I found these sweet spots in the sensors where the shadows turn brown or purple and it reacts and I combined that with filtration and then a set of lenses that I’ve built for myself over the last 10 years, we call them the Wonder speeds. So I just kept testing till I found something that gave me an emotional response. I’d been doing makeup tests with Richard and he would ask me questions and we would talk about the character and I would just always have my Alexa there, just learning his face, learning how it worked. So I tried to let all that stuff organically add up. And once I had Richard’s face and I knew what he could look like, then I started working backwards.
Richard Gere looks like Richard Gere in a 50mm. It’s crazy, you put a 50 on him he looks like a movie star, anything else he doesn’t look like the person you know. And then I found this very interesting wide-angle anamorphic lens at ARRI Rental, an alpha lens, and what I loved about it was I could be this close with no distortion. And so I knew Jacob had that young, long face where I could really push it with him, and so I thought those two things would create enough of a visual contrast to again create conflict.
It’s like music or rhythm. It’s about creating pattern, pattern, pattern, break the pattern, pattern, pattern, pattern, break the pattern. That was kind of always the intention, but it was very hard for people to understand. No one had seen an Interrotron before but me. I had built them for years, so I knew what they were, and so I spent a lot of time creating charts and diagrams and communication tools, not like lighting plots, but communication tools. I have a one-sheeter, where I created the whole film on one page, scene by scene, where I highlighted every scene by what look it had, and that became the touchstone for the whole production, so that they always knew where we were.
I feel like the matrix of cinema is four things: emotionally, it’s openness and awareness, you have to be open to the world around you but aware of your intention. At the same time with leadership it’s communication and scheduling. And if you find your way in the matrix of those four things, you probably have a good shot at it.
An idea the film explores is how people react differently when they have a camera on them. With Leonard Fife himself pioneering the Interrotron in the film, which isolates interview subjects in a box. I was curious as to if the film employed similar techniques like this during production?
Yes and no. For me, that technique of the Interrotron has been part of my process for a long time, making documentaries and making films. I always liked it. I once did a play with Ethan Hawke where they wanted some live video and I actually built one as a mirror without another camera. They would be doing a stage reading to the audience and they would turn their backs to my camera. I had a dolly behind them and it was cool when they looked back. It forced them to look into the mirror at their own image and you’d see it would change them. You know, it’s always about eye contact for me and making it as personal as possible, keeping the camera small, keeping it humane.
Richard at the first makeup test he looked at me and said “Oh, Paul, told me something about you. How are you going to shoot this thing?” And I said “Easy Richard, in every frame I’m going to give you light and I’m going to give you shadow. It’s going to move across the frame and then you have it as a tool. When you want to hide, when you want to be vulnerable. I will create that world for you in every shot.” You know, every frame is a stage to act.
In your credits it appears that Oh, Canada is the first major film you’ve DP’d. And it seems like you primarily work as a director. I was wondering if when you DP a film, do you consider the process as wholly separate from your directing work. Are you more at the beck and call of Paul, or do you think you have more leeway with making creative choices?
Spaghetti is a funny interview food I’m realizing. But it’s very good.
You know it’s a great question and I appreciate it. I started so young as a cinematographer. I shot my first feature when I was 20 in New Orleans for Michael Almereyda, and it went to SXSW. I then started at MTV, where there were no directors, you were just a producer or cinematographer. I think that’s always allowed me to have an egoless approach to the process no matter what position I’m in.
I truly believe it’s the decisions we make over this next decade that will decide if cinema lives beyond our generation. It’s in danger. Look how much time is being wasted making images of images as opposed to images of the world. In the 60s with those Godard films existentialism is 10 years old. Bertolucci, Godard, Bresson were using a new form to answer life’s questions. And look at us today, we woke up in a future we don’t understand. And cinema is not the town hall it was, but narrative still has the power to show us how to live in this new world. So I am here for cinema. I will die for cinema, I will give my life to it. And if the project that helps me save cinema is, as a cinematographer, great. If it’s as a director-cinematographer, great.
I’ve always shot for myself, I’ve always been a performance person, I’m handheld, I like eye contact, I like making someone feel safe so that they can perform, and so I just try to bring that. Paul’s been a mentor for a long time and I looked at this as a chance to give back to him. I just sold my company, it was a leap of faith, I had no way to support myself and I told myself you know, maybe this will be the last movie I’m a part of, better go as hard as I can and see how far I can push it. I really believe in form before structure and if you don’t let yourself go into form, you just get stuck in a box.
It’s hard to learn when you’re directing because you’re just problem solving. Through DPing I’ve learned so much about meeting and learning about actors and producers in this very different way, seeing how decisions affect the process. All that came because I was able to let go and be a DP and I really found joy in it. It’s 2024, it’s cool now that you can be whatever butterfly you want to be. That’s what I loved about being a student at NYU. One day I was an intern, the next day I was a union camera assistant, the third I was a DP. I’ve always lived that kind of way and I enjoy it. I think it keeps you hard. In doing this film, it taught me a lot of new skills. It taught me a lot of new ways to approach things I wouldn’t have. And you know, those perspectives are what keep your art fresh.
I think what’s interesting about Paul is that from the start he has the book Transcendental Style in Film and you get the sense he’s very focused on form. But throughout his career people have thought more of him as a writer. Do you think he is as concerned with form as he is with the performance or script of a film?
It was so fascinating being on set with Paul. I’ve always worked in a really abstract way. I’m a performance-first person, so I usually look at a scene and my shots and I go what creates the best performance opportunity? If it’s a close up, if it’s a wide, if it’s a dolly shot, whatever the thing the actor needs. We made the film in 17 days, which was really fun because no one can catch you. You have to just be present and create. But watching Paul is interesting. He’d really have to set up a master shot and see the actors do it to be able to see the scene. And then from there it really became about the edit points. Sometimes we would do a close-up for only three lines because he didn’t want the option, because that was the edit point and that was interesting to see carried out. It was very different from how I’ve always worked and it was interesting to see the benefits of pre-visualizing and what it adds. I think for him the edit and the clarity of the story are really, really important. He’s really good at getting out of the way of everything else. Richard and Uma Thurman really took authority with their roles, he let them kind of run it.
Transcendental Style is a very foundational text for me, and I think what the book lays out is that you can make a film in an extremely controlled, measured way, almost like a formula. And that when you position elements in certain ways by the end, when you break those patterns, it really hits you.
But there is always a difference between wanting to conceptualize the film this way and actually making it. Because then you see how all the different factors come in, like in how you want to get a performance. So I’m just kind of wondering if Paul, or even you, had any sort of philosophical approach to the film as to how it would all come together in guiding the audience emotionally?
It was very important to me to use different techniques to create visual contrast,, and to take Paul’s story and find a way to create emotional visuals that accentuated it. That’s why I created those charts, color-coded, so I could see the spread, to see the timing, to see how the decisions were playing out. And so, Paul, on the Transcendental side, when I talk to him about Bresson, it’s really interesting. How he talks about how Bresson is like a diver, you rise to the net. He likes to keep the net high, hoping that the audience will rise with the net, and I see the reaction to the film and I see how sometimes that makes people uncomfortable.
It’s interesting to see visually ambitious things for him, like the double characters, or Jacob in a mirror, but they’re done so subtly as well, so it’s an interesting conquest. And I think that the contrast is what will make this a film that people will watch in 10 years. One that stays in the Paul Schrader canon, I think in a lot of ways, more than the recent films since First Reformed, and I’m proud of that. I feel like the ambition and the emotion we added allows this collective grief to form that I hope will allow the film to continue to resonate.
Did you see the Richard Brody tweet about how this is the first film in a while that Paul Schrader was truly concerned with form? Do you think you agree with that?
You know, Paul would look at me in prep and he’d say: “Andrew, I got one bullet in this gun before I turn it on myself.” And I’d look back and I’d say: “Well then, we better hit something with it.” And his openness, his openness. I hadn’t shot a film for anyone in 10 years besides myself, and I asked him, when he offered me the film: why do you want me to do this? Like I’m not making a reel, I don’t have that shit. And he looked at me, he said “It’s because I trust you.” And I really tried to use that trust to push him and not be afraid of him. I’ve seen, you know, you get to that stature like Megalopolis (2024), like who’s telling you no. And I just hope to be the person not to say no, but the person to say: what about this, what about that?
One of my favorite moments on set was shooting the scene where Richard gets out of the car, walks towards camera and the camera pans and then Jacob enters the frame. I remember Paul’s script had all these match cuts where they walk, mid-step turning into each other but there was a six-inch height difference between the two. We did it once and had to put six inches of apple boxes, pretty hard to do mid-step. That was a moment where I looked at Paul and I said to him: “Why don’t we do this like an old movie just pan it over, hand it off, one becomes one, one becomes the other. It’s so simple, it’ll be elegant.” And I remember he got quiet. He looked at me and went: “Andrew, that’s such a good idea, it almost makes up for all your annoying ones.” And then he took the whole crew in a circle and told them the same thing.
I think this might be more of a question for Paul, but I was always curious as to at what point did you make the decision to swap between Jacob and Richard in certain scenes?
All of it was scripted. There are two big departures from the original script. One was how Uma joins the Interrotron. That wasn’t in the film and that happened in a really funny, organic way. Richard and I were doing makeup tests, we were hanging out talking and during one of the tests he looked at me and went: “This guy’s doing this because he needs to tell his wife these things.” I laughed and he’s like: “What’s funny?” I’m like: “Well, if he’s so concerned with telling his wife things, why is he talking to some of his former students through an Interrotron?” And I saw his face and got really worried. I was like, oh, I don’t want to overstep.
I remember I went to Paul the next day and I was like: “Paul, I’m really sorry, I had this conversation with Richard, I said this thing and I saw his face react, I just want you to know about it.” And he turns to me and he’s like: “Oh so that was you,” because Richard and Uma had come to Paul in rehearsals and requested that change. It was really great again to see Paul’s openness allow it, because I really think it enhances the film. It gives it variety.
And the other one was an epilogue. This film is a testament to a collaboration between me, Deb Jensen, the production designer, Ben Rodriguez, the editor, and Aubrey Lauder, the costume designer. I called it the triangle of creativity between me, Deb and Aubrey and we would just text each other every time we talked to Paul so we could support each other. I think we really tried to build a bedrock for that ambition to exist. One day Ben in the edit said I don’t think we need this epilogue and instantly we were like, yeah, and we spent a month trying to convince Paul to see it without it and he just never would screen it without. He said: “I feel it in my bones.” One of the most important lessons I learned from Paul is the power of seeing your film with 10 to 15 people in a room. That until you have that group of people where you can feel their energy you don’t know what’s going on. Don’t know when they shuffle in the seat, when they fall asleep, when they turn away. And we did the final screening with Uma and some people before the DCP and that night I wrote Paul this email: Can you feel it, or did you feel it, that when Jacob walks off into the field, that everyone in the audience is ready to stand up and applaud?
And then you had three more minutes where they went to the crematorium to see his urn in ashes. It was Uma, and then Zach, who plays Cornel the son, and I was like Paul, it’s not too late. And he wrote me this response about how he’d never seen it that way, how he had thought about it for a minute. And I sent him back my favorite Wayne Gretzky quote, I told him: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” And I really respected him in the 11th hour for being brave enough to look at it. And it was amazing how, once he made that change and sent it out to people, how unanimously, they felt the same way.
And it’s hard. You know what it’s like making films. It’s like you get stuck on the idea in your head as opposed to what the world puts in front of you. That’s narcissism. And as a filmmaker it’s so hard to know what parts of your vision to fight for and what parts to give to the world.
After making enough films, I saw every big shot I ever planned, every big gag, everything with blood, the thing I’ve spent the most money on, every time has gotten cut and you kind of just learn that you have to trust the tea leaves. Which is what I really tried to push Paul towards on set when we were coming up with ways of shooting it from the blocking to the edit. I’ve been in Paul’s test screenings since Dog Eat Dog (2016). I’ve seen every cut with every audience he’s shown and I’d never seen one that actually woke people up emotionally the same way this film did. At the first screening, people were crying. Kim from Criterion said it made her feel rage. People were reacting to it and I think there’s a certain collective emotional resonance that got woven in the film’s DNA.
The thing about that ending is that it is such a departure from the last three films, which all basically end the same. They end the same way as Pickpocket (1959), where grace is offered and whatever transgressions the main character does in his life gets thrown out the window. But I feel with Oh, Canada, there’s more of this idea of honesty, of really looking at yourself and recognizing how little you can reconcile everything.
You know to be an artist, you leave things behind. It’s your family, your values. So many things change as you go down the path of form and that’s why I really thought that ending was a statement as opposed to an ending, because the story begins when Richard wakes up, when Leonard Fife wakes up, and it ends when he dies. And it was the same for Jacob, for young Leonard Fife, when he crossed that border young Leonard Fife died.
That’s why I liked the 3:2 aspect ratio for the present sections, and why I tried to create a certain coldness. My reference was mahogany, I wanted to feel the wood. I really wanted to, as much as I could, use framing and lighting to show the hollowness of leaving, of original sin. Working off the religious background that matters so much with Paul, I felt like in that passion play way I could visually be more expressive with the lighting and the images. Because why not? Why not make a statement with those things? Seeing the previous films, that’s what I really wanted to enhance, making sure the visuals made as much of a statement as the script.
You mentioned Fat City, you mentioned Bergman. Do you have any other aesthetic inspirations for how you shot it?
Well, I mean, life is Godard you know.
I don’t really like references. I hate shot deck. I think it should all be burnt to the ground. It’s such a shame we live in a world where people know what’s good but they don’t know why it’s good and they can execute good, but without meaning. It’s so easy to make a film that I don’t think anyone cares about what they’re saying anymore or it’s become far and few between, so I really try not to work with references. I really try to let it come. I believe cinema comes from the air, the ocean, the ground, and trying to let that fuse me. I mean, the lighting of The Godfather (1972) had an impact, but I hate top lighting, so it was just in vibe.
Fat City gave us a faded look and I knew John Huston and The Dead (1987) was a big influence for Paul, so I thought Fat City was a nice way to bring his influence. Black and white became a real way to learn about those things: from Bergman to Welles. I tried to create as much Welles in the 50s: like the deep focus shots of him with his family, the quick pans, really playing with depth, bringing out that James Dean vibe for Jacob because he could do it. Later it became more Bergman, and Shame (1968) was probably my Bergman touchstone. I watched a lot of these films as we were filming, not as reference but as nourishment at night going home. And you know I watched Persona five days in a row. I just couldn’t stop watching it.
I mean that’s a film where every time you watch it it’s a different experience.
I personally think it’s the best film Godard never made. I don’t think you have that film without Godard.
I tell people that Persona was Bergman’s response when he thought that he was getting outpaced by the younger generation.
And man he fucking came to play. And then you see Breathless (1960), you see Le Petit Soldat (1963), and you see those films, and those films don’t exist without Bergman. And to see Godard take Bergman, flip it on its head with the Cassavetes influence combined with the Bergman naturalism, and then have Bergman dish it back. To me that’s what makes cinema special, is that the form creates form. I came on the first day. I was like “Paul, fucking Persona. It blew my mind.” I started asking him questions and he’s like: “Listen, there’s a 15 minute interview with me on Criterion, it’ll tell you everything I think about it.”
But, I watched the interview and came back with more questions. The black and white really became a palette for classical cinema. Probably my only framing reference for the entire film is one shot from Shame.
Another reference came when Paul had the section with the son when he confronts Richard. What I kept telling Paul was like this could be like the bridge of a song. I have a theory my fiance will laugh with me saying this out loud I call it the Salsa Theory. I believe that visual languages now, with the way we work, require approaches rather than intention, because you can use approaches to create contrast. So, for me and a lot of my work, it’ll be a mix of handheld and slow motion, like a salsa or a cocktail. You’d have three ingredients: two main ingredients and a spice. So it might be handheld and slow motion as my main ingredients and then steadicam or jib shot as my spice.
And so, looking at the structure of the film, with our Salsa Theory, with 3:2 contrast, anamorphic, faded, and the black and white being the spice that shakes it up, there was this son section that just didn’t fit. That was an extra ingredient. So I said, all right, what if we make it like the bridge of a song? And what if we made it different, made it distinct? And that’s when Paul suggested Cries and Whispers (1972) as a reference. And that’s where all that red came from. So we scouted to find the red. I mean a testament to Deb, that red Chinese restaurant where they have, which I think is a great scene, we actually had to do French reverses there because we only had two walls, because if you shot the other way, you saw the diner where Leonard goes to get his bran muffin. We had to deal with those limits. I’ve done 10 day features. I love them. In some ways I’d rather do a 10 day feature than a 50 day feature because I feel like the longer the feature is you don’t get any more shooting time, you just get more talking time and I’d rather just be alive.
The thing we do now used to be town hall. It’s where you went for things, it’s where you saw music, it’s where you went for ideas and your audience didn’t have a choice between 100 years of cinema and what you made. And I think cinema has become devalued, and I think that will be our freedom. I think we also have to acknowledge that films just aren’t worth as much as they used to and the lack of value it has in society is our cross to bear, and we have to give it value. We have to re-approach form, story, character and execution to find things that have value but can live in a box that can sustain us. I mean, thank god for Vidiots and The Roxy and places that have created these non-profit arenas for cinema. Where we can talk in the lobby and love cinema. I believe that when we make films that support an individual community, those films will have the best chance of growing beyond that community and growing beyond that world.
You made the short film PAUL SCHRADER, FUTURE OF MOVIES, 70TH BIENNALE DE VENEZIA , which is one of my favorite shorts. Everything Paul says about the future of cinema is always been rattling in my mind, and it’s become one of the areas of interest I write about. On the question of: Where do we go from here?
And I think you have a lot of similar ideas as Paul. But what I find is interesting is that you’re maybe half his age. So you have this incredibly interesting vantage point. I noticed this year you have Coppola, you have Paul and last year we had Scorsese trotting out these late period films, and I think we’re really at this point where the old guard: New Hollywood, they’re phasing out just because of age. Something we had earlier with the French New Wave, when everyone else died out, maybe like a decade ago. So we’re at this really really interesting point where we can’t just keep relying on the past. And of course you have insight just from working with Paul and being around Paul.
That short is a really fun one. It’s crazy to see, being 10 years old, how much of it still feels true, and the statement that feels the most true about it is that we’ve entered a phase of constant change. There is no normal to return to. It’s crazy to think: the films from the 70s are now the old films, the films from the 90s are the last generation. Meanwhile, when I was in film school, the 50s were the old films and the 70s were still pop.
The problem with the 70s, despite the good stuff about the films, is that if you think about it, in the 60s Europe created a new wave where they took ideas and forms and started trying to answer the world’s questions. What’s really the accomplishment of the American directors of the 70s? That they industrialized and commercialized European art. And I get now how those films became our own films and why that has led to the Xeroxing of Xeroxing, of Xeroxing. And I believe again, what cinema needs now is fire. We need fire, passion, our fists.
You can create anything you can see in your head through AI or computers or a camera or crew, you can put anything on screen, which to me means that those images no longer have any value. There’s nothing ambitious. To me the only ambition left is the discovered image, the Malick image, the Godard image, the image that could have only existed in that moment, with the light, when it has aura. There’s a book Paul gave me. It’s 30 pages. It’s Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. And it talks about the aura, how things had an aura and then, by democratizing them, it lost its aura. But look at the world. The world has been conquering itself up until our generation, and now we’re in the first phase of the world that’s ever considered preservation. When in history have you ever heard preservation be the goal of a society? Again, I think it’s not that different. It’s just reorienting ourselves not to the cinema we love but to the world we live in, and that’s it.
So now you’ve gotta light a fire under someone’s ass. I really tried to make this film and I try to make all my films the way humans do: handheld, tripod, dolly, no remote heads, no technicians, because the moment of creation is the most important thing. You have to think if you remove the filmmaking process and you’re present, you can get an infinite amount of takes, but when you let the industrial process take over, you get three. What do you do with that?
You know, I feel grateful. I feel like Jacob and I both benefited from a generational handoff on this film. And the chance to work, march and create alongside people who saw the rise of the cinema that I hold so dear. What I’ve learned most from them is you have to be bold: openness and awareness. And the process always vanillas out your stuff. If you wrote a script that was someone punching a wall for an hour and a half, by the time you shot it they would be punching the wall for 20 minutes. So you have to have the bravery to let each part of the process recreate itself
What I love about filmmaking is that it’s a past, present, future process, and it’s the only one. You write the future, you edit the past, then there’s this one moment of creation, the years of work you do for one moment of creation, and you see the way people throw it away. But in that moment is infinity, it’s life, a meaningless moment that would otherwise be thrown away in the ether, captured forever. And it’s somewhere in there, that is the answer to your question.