CHAPTER 9
CINEMATIC POINT OF VIEW
The most important thing a director needs is a point of view. When you see a movie, if you’re alert, it’s the thinking that went on behind the movie that’s interesting, really. The rest is just … scenery. Even the script. In the first ten or fifteen shots of a film you can usually tell whether the director’s thinking and what he’s thinking about.
—Oliver Stone1
Once a director has thoroughly analyzed the screenplay for dramatic and narrative integrity, their work has only just begun. A director is a Storyteller whose medium is not the screenplay, but the screen. The visual compositions, performances, lighting, sound, setting, and the juxtaposition of images are the director’s tools and means of expression. ...
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