A Quote by Jason Reitman
Growing up the son of a director has made me very aware of the various turns that a directing career can take. Sometimes your films turn out exactly as you want. Sometimes they don't. I spent a lot of my childhood on sets. I think as a joke, my father gave me a line of dialogue in each of his films during the worst moments of my puberty.
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My father ran London Films. He made films like 'The Red Shoes,' 'The Third Man.' And he had had a long career in the film business, which was bifurcated with a career in intelligence. He had to deal with gangsters, and sometimes he would take me with him. Also, I went to school with their children.
There's a level where the themes of a film are very relevant to me and also the idea of finding out how relevant one genre is to another. I think that westerns and samurai films and superhero films have a lot in common. It's just that the scale of the visuals in tentpole films can sometimes overwhelm the drama.
I spent my childhood watching every scary movie that Hollywood ever made. And I think that gave me the best education for storytelling. It also made me want to reproduce the scary moments that I felt, sitting in a theater at the age of 5.
I think it's very common that scientists or technical people have an artistic side. Sometimes they are very accomplished musicians. Sometimes they have very fine tastes according to art or design. And often, they've spent a big chunk of their childhood or they're growing-up years trying to get in very good at those activities.
Subconsciously, there was always an actor inside me. But while growing up, it was a very normal childhood because my dad never got films to the dining table and never discussed films.
The films that have influenced me and the films that have motivated me and inspired me were films that resonated, films that made me think after I saw them.
Tell me about one son of a famous director who makes films like his father? Why do you expect a student to become a teacher?
We tried so hard. We were always trying to help each other. But not because we were helpless. He needed to get things for me, just as I needed to get things for him. It gave us purpose. Sometimes I would ask him for something that I did not even want, just to let him get it for me. We spent our days trying to help each other help each other. I would get his slippers. He would make my tea. I would turn up the heat so he could turn up the air conditioner so I could turn up the heat.
My holidays in Hyderabad would be spent on films sets visiting my father and uncle, or in the studios; I was gradually drawn to films.
I decide on the films I want to do. Sometimes I ask my father for advice, but he never forces me. He is like a friend to me. My father has been my biggest strength when it comes to cinema.
All I've learned is that you need the studio system sometimes, if your budget is a certain size, and other films you can do independently. When I think of a studio, I generally think of distribution. Since I'm a director, I have a similar creative experience on every film I do, because I can control that. But then it's a different film, I think, as it reaches the public, depending on the way it's marketed. I don't know. I haven't learned much of anything. Sometimes you need them, sometimes you don't. Sometimes they want you, most of the time they don't.
To me, the most interesting films are films that take very strong points of view and bang them up against each other and let sparks happen.
If you want to show cinema, make entertainment films. Sometimes they are very good, sometimes very bad, but the intention is always to make entertaining films.
Though I technically come from a film family, my father had stopped making films even before my brother and I were born. So I did not really grow up in a filmi environment. And when I was growing up, becoming an actress was still quite a taboo. And you may not believe this, but even my father did not want me to join films.
Freud believed that our dreams sometimes recapitulate a speech, a comment we've heard or something that we've read. I always had compositions in my dreams. They would be a joke, a piece of a novel, a witticism or a piece of dialogue from a play, and I would dream them. I would actually express them line by line in the dream. Sometimes after waking up I would remember a snatch or two and write them down. There's something in me that just wants to create dialogue.
The last thing my father told me was: 'On your way up, take me up. On your way down, don't let me down.' A father telling his son that puts some responsibility on my shoulders. He told me that, and I take it very seriously.
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