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III
Film Directing
Direction — fJie be-all (and end-all sometimes) of
film production. One of the most famous directors
writes on his work, ivhich has reached considerable
success in Paramount prodticlions.
by Ernst Lubitsch
T AM constantly asked : " How do you decide on those touches that -*■ stamp a lihn ? Do you think of them as you go along ? Do the players sometimes insert them ? Or are they all decided before the production is started ? "
When I have answered and settled those little problems I shall have given you a very good idea of my side of this wonderful business of making pictures.
For it is a wonderful business ; a fascinating, romantic profession that becomes more and more intriguing with each film.
Always one must be thinking of fresh ideas ; new ways to keep an audience interested ; different methods of conveying a meaning to them. In the ]\Iaurice Chevalier picture One Hour With You, I allowed Maurice to take the audience into his confidence, by facing them and, in a typical Chevalier manner, blandly ask what he shall do next ! At the beginning of the film, too, he tells the audience that, contrary to their belief, he really is married. There you get a different touch that all directors strive to insert into their films.
How is that " different " touch found ?
I am given a story. Let us say, for example, as I have already mentioned Chevalier, that it is to have Maurice and Jeanette MacDonald as the ■ stars. With this fact before me and being in possession of the main theme of the story, I practically lock myself away from the rest of the world, w'ith my script writer and technical staff. For two or three months we will pore over the work. Every detail is worked out. Perhaps for days I think round a particular scene. Nothing is decided hastily. After a good deal of anxiet)' and thought, someone perhaps hits on a happy solution. \\e, believe we are ready for further de\-elopment.
The very next week I may visualize quite differently the way that scene should be done. Back we go, retracing our steps, scrapping ideas' and whole scenes, if necessa^3^ just to fit in with this new angle. Gradually the whole production is built up. In my mind's eye I can see exactly how that film will appear on the screen. I may revolve an idea round my mind for daj-s, thinking it out first this way and then that. Would a song be