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My suggestion would be, if you're starting to

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make a film or you want to express

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yourself on some sort of visual narrative, I

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don't know if you have to be conscious

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of your style.

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I mean, you can use a sense of

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an aspect of some style that you think

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you might have, but be aware that it

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might reveal itself to be something else, and

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that's what's more important.

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That's the essential of who you are and

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what you're trying to say and how you're

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expressing it.

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You're using the tools to express it, because

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ultimately, if you take away all the equipment,

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you still have to be able to tell

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the story.

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Can't talk about my own style.

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I don't know what that is, really, so

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other people could do it if they want,

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but I don't know how to.

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So I'm trying to make the pictures, feel

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the need at times to really make these

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pictures for whatever that means.

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To me, it means that you can't, it

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means that you, it's hard for you to

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continue your daily life unless you work on

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this particular story or work out making a

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film, so to speak.

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So I'm just making the pictures, telling the

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stories, trying to capture the emotions, the ideas,

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and really trying to provoke it to the

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best of my ability, what's left of my

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time and what's left of the capacity for

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my brain, basically, going further into the history

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of filmmaking.

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We now agree that verbal literacy is necessary,

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and we take that for granted, but a

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couple of thousand years ago, Socrates actually disagreed.

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His argument was almost the very same, identical

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to the arguments of people today who object

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to the internet or to, or the people

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back in the 60s and 70s who warned

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about the evils of television.

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Socrates worried that writing and reading would actually

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lead to not truly knowing it.

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He believed that if people would have stopped

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memorizing, start writing and reading, they'd be in

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danger of cultivating the appearance of wisdom as

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opposed to the real thing.

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He was afraid that reading it would take

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away the actual knowledge and the understanding of

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the text.

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So the same kinds of questions still come

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up around moving images.

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They're too literal, they leave nothing to the

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imagination, and they're inferior to the written word.

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So now, if you're taking this class, I'm

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going to take it for granted that you

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don't agree with those ideas.

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But if you're going to make films, I

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promise you that you're going to encounter them,

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because words and images have a common source.

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So when you look at ancient writing, you

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see that words and images are almost indistinguishable.

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In fact, words are images, they're symbols.

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Written Chinese and Japanese still actually look like

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pictographic languages.

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The written word is not superior to the

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moving image.

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They are both ways, they are both modes

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of communication and expression of equal value.

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So to me, when people talk about visual

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literacy, I think that in the end, there's

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just literacy.

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Period.

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The most important thing is to understand the

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difference between certain images, or to be more

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precise, certain sequences of images.

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Some are meant to sell something, some are

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meant to just entertain, and some are meant

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to inform.

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And some, and this is what we're talking

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about here, are meant to tell stories.

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And in so doing, pursue and discover something

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surprising and mysterious.

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Not all images are there to be eaten,

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consumed, like fast food and forgotten, that's important

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to remember.

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We're not mass manufacturers, we're trying to be

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filmmakers.

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The world of moviemaking, where these remarkable images

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came from, the stories and the worlds they

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depicted, this felt very, very distant.

95
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I mean, if I even, I did have

96
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the dreams of maybe putting something together like

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what would become a movie, but these were

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purely dreams.

99
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There was no way to actually implement this

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in any way, and no way we really

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thought that such a thing could happen to

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us, to be able to make a film.

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It was like a place that you had

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to conquer, in a way, you had to

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overtake and be able to do your own

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thing.

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So the next best thing I was able

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to do, since it was a working class

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family, didn't have cameras and that sort of

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thing, it was too expensive.

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So I was able to, the only way

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I could express this desire, this impulse, I

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should say, was to draw imaginary movies in

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a small, small room that I was in,

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in the tenements living downtown on Elizabeth Street.

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And these were different genres.

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Some were based on television shows I saw,

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some were water-colored, some were just black

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and white with ebony pencils, some were even

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sepia.

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A lot of those don't exist.

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What does exist now is the beginnings of

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an ancient Roman epic, which I never finished,

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which allowed me to play with aspect ratios,

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or what I now know as an aspect

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ratio, in a 65 millimeter or 70 millimeter

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aspect ratio.

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And so this was a way of trying

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to tell the stories from frame to frame.

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I'd show it to a few friends, but

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they felt that they were just stills, drawings,

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and I explained to them that in between

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the frames that were drawn, there was movement,

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or you have to imagine the movement, you

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see.

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The only way I could try to come

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up with a visual narrative or make a

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movie, quote-unquote, was to draw these pictures

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within frames, and sometimes it'd be a strip

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of paper and maybe divide it into three

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frames.

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And the difference between each frame, sometimes I

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found myself editing, telling the story with medium

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shots, close-ups, wide shots, that sort of

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thing.

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Very rarely were the frames from frame one

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to two or from two to three wide

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shots, simply wide shots, sort of like in

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the first films that were made.

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I was just finding my way based upon

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what I saw in the movie theater and

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on television.

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And so in some cases, the frames would

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be cuts from one to the other.

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In others, there would be frames which represented

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three or four parts of the same shot.

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I imagined camera movement, and I also imagined

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that when the cuts were made, that there

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was some sort of movement in the film,

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in a way, and one would have to

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use your imagination.

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So when I was able to start to

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actually put a film together, the only thing

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I could relate to really was to go

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back to those drawings and design the whole

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picture on paper, which is what I did

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in my first short films and pretty much

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subsequently most of the films I've made.

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On a practical level, it gives you an

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idea of exactly what you want to get

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that particular day of shooting or for the

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entire schedule of the picture so that you

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can utilize the time properly.

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You don't make it up as you go

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along on set and waste that time and

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energy of everyone and money.

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So it was meant as a, not just

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a blueprint, but an actualization of the shots

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I wanted to get exactly how they go.

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I think the documentaries I've been trying to

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do over the years, or the non-fiction

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films, are really, for me, projects that have

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no rules, in a sense.

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And if they have no rules, it gets

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tougher.

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So, what that means is they're ripe places

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for experimenting or finding another way to tell

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a story, whether it's through a piece of

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music or whether the editing itself becomes music,

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meaning rhythm and pace.

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And telling stories elliptically, I tend to want

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to continue making these non-fiction films because

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they, I'd hoped, or at times, feel that

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they should inform the narrative structure of the

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fictional films I make.

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And there's a freedom in making these documentaries

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or these music films, so to speak.

198
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There's a freedom of form that loosens me

199
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up, in a way.

200
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Everything's included in the shooting of it.

201
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If you are shooting certain scenes, sometimes it's

202
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the footage that already exists.

203
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The shooting of it, and particularly in the

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editing, there is no such thing as editing,

205
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it's writing.

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Writing, editing.

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You're making the film there, in that room.

208
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And so, you can go many different ways.

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It's infinite.

210
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And so, it's really a challenge, as they

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say.

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It's also true of the documentary I made

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about my parents, called Italian American.

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In fact, I learned a lot from that

215
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by letting them exist, I should say, within

216
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the frame and tell the stories without intercutting

217
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or finding obvious cinematic techniques to push time

218
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forward or backwards.

219
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Didn't matter.

220
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Jump cuts, putting 12 frames of Black Leader

221
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slugs in the middle of a story, just

222
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to get to another point.

223
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Just holding on the person, really, was a

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great lesson.

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And the pictures I've made that are set

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within the world where I grew up, or

227
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related to that world, like Mean Streets, or

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Raging Bull, or Goodfellas, so and so.

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I think, for example, one aspect of it

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that's really important is the body language.

231
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It's very important.

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The way that people relate to each other,

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physically.

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I suppose it was that fact which let

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it take center stage and didn't complicate it

236
00:10:42,230 --> 00:10:46,010
with cutting or anything superficially cinematic in the

237
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creation of certain kinds of stories.

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In many cases, it's when to hold the

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shot, when to let the people speak, when

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to just watch them, you know, and not

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move the camera, and not cut.

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You find what's there in that, in a

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sense, they inhabit the film.

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The use of voiceover is very important to

245
00:11:09,750 --> 00:11:09,970
me.

246
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It was just a natural element in making

247
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movies.

248
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I appreciated so much over the years seeing

249
00:11:16,710 --> 00:11:20,210
films with voiceover, particularly Kind Hearts and Coronets,

250
00:11:21,050 --> 00:11:25,470
with that wonderfully restrained humor of the voiceover,

251
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the irony, which put me in the mind

252
00:11:29,410 --> 00:11:34,330
thereof, so to speak, of using ironic voiceover

253
00:11:34,330 --> 00:11:36,810
in Goodfellas.

254
00:11:37,310 --> 00:11:39,650
The inherent humor in some of the voiceover

255
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in that film comes, sparked from Kind Hearts

256
00:11:43,330 --> 00:11:48,580
and Coronets or other films at the time.

257
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Particularly, there was also a wonderful use of

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voiceover in Shoot the Piano Player, Truffaut, and

259
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Jules and Jim.

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I like that very much.

261
00:11:55,680 --> 00:11:58,040
It goes back and forth through time and

262
00:11:58,040 --> 00:12:00,460
space, building up the relationship of the two

263
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men and their friends in that world, the

264
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world of the left bank at that time.

265
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And for me, yes, it has a lot

266
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of exposition, meaning explaining what you're seeing, but

267
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somehow the words don't necessarily, the words don't,

268
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are not needed to fully explain it, what

269
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you're seeing.

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In other words, the narration itself is not

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expository in a dull sense, in a didactic

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way.

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It somehow expresses the joy and the warmth

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and the love between these characters, and also

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the freewheeling aspect of this kind of thinking,

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this life that they're living, or the life

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they'd like to live, too.

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And so I thought, what about a whole

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movie that way?

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And that became Goodfellas.

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And so there was a spark there.

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Barry Lyndon's another good example of voiceover.

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The language of the voiceover in that particular

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film, the language itself.

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And so that led to, of course, the

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use of the voiceover in Age of Innocence.

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When we were about to make the film,

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there were those who were in the production

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who turned to me and said, who's talking?

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I didn't realize people took it that literally.

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Who's talking?

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The storyteller.

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I don't know.

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The person telling you the story.

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Or the person living the story.

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And so I never took it that literal,

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in many cases, I believe.

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So Age of Innocence, we had the opportunity

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there to play with voiceover from the book

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of Edith Wharton, using her language, in very

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much the same way, not the same way,

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but very much inspired by the use of

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language in Barry Lyndon and a number of

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other films and voiceover.

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The whole point is that when I found

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narration, the use of narration and voiceover as

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part of the storytelling, as natural to me

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in the very first film I made, the

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very first short film I made, it's covered

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with voiceover.

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It's an element of the storytelling in film,

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not a literary device.

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In the case of Age of Innocence, we're

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able to take advantage of the literary because

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we can take the voiceover directly from what

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was written in the book, in the novel

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by Edith Wharton.

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But for me, it was one of the

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cinematic elements in the film, not a literary

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element at all.

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And not something to just give you exposition

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as to what's happening in the film.