Mackendrick was the legendary director of The Sweet Smell of Success and a long-time professor at Calarts Film School. On filmmaking, his collected lectures, is one of the best books I have ever read on the subject, and is especially useful for student filmmakers. Some quotes:
- Student films come in three sizes; Too Long, Much Too Long, and Very Much Too Long.
- PASSIVITY is the capital crime in drama.
- Obscurity is seldom a virtue. If the point you want to make is of any significance, then there is no harm in making it clearly.
- Improvisation is only valuable when it has its roots in the highly disciplined and often exhausting work that has gone before.
- Aristotle’s phrase ‘unity of action’ refers to the sense of completeness that is a basic satisfaction in almost every dramatic work. So if ou think you have a great beginning of a story, but the end is weak, the real truth is that you don’t yet have the right beginning
- Film dialogue is best when it has an immediate purpose and produces reactions in others.
- ‘Protagonist’ (the name given to the leading character in your story) literally means the person who initiates the agon (struggle). But a figure who does not (or cannot) actually do things or who hasn’t got the gumption to struggle in a way that produces new situations and developments is apt – in dramatic terms – to be a dead weight on the narrative.
It’s a brilliant book. I enjoy revisiting it now that I’ve made two more films. The lessons have some more weight to them.
