Film critic Richard Schickel, in a DVD-release commentary on Side Street (dir. Anthony Mann, 1955):
If I may just say so, I am so irritated with young people who proudly claim never to have seen a black-and-white movie. They don’t understand: art’s about limits. It’s not about limitlessness.
comments: 6
The quote is just excellent – thank you for posting it!
I would second that and say (and have said it here before) that all art, whether a sonnet or a woodcut, is about the limits, and crowding those limits so closely that your creativity bristles. And you'd be pretty stupid not to go back and see what your forebears have already done.
Part of the problem is that the TV networks want to use color and don't show black and white movies much any more.
I think this is why quite a few quilters I know only function well when there is a 'challenge'--the restrictions make them comfortable. For others, the trick is to write their own border-lines.
Quite a while ago I found the advice "Embrace constraints". I can't remember the source but I think of it ever since. – I have also heard from a comic artist who has often put himself under servere restrictions as some kind of exercise.
Elaine, George, Gunther: thanks for commenting on this (great, I agree) observation. I’m glad it now has some exposure beyond the DVD commentary.
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