Welcome to CineMagazine, the site dedicated to the world of cinema, with all the curiosities and insights into this magnificent art. For today’s post we want to tell you about directing in cinema . In fact , if you liked a film to the point of wanting to see it again several times, without ever getting tired, remember that the merit is not only of the actors or who wrote the screenplay: the director has a very important role . Because no matter how good the interpreters and the engaging story can be, if the direction is poor the film doesn’t work.
The film director, like the theatrical one, has the task of “binding” all the parts of the work and directing them towards a specific goal.
Sometimes it is an objective dear to the director’s choice alone , other times it is a joint effort, which aims to enhance each actor and each scene of the film towards a common final result. But unlike the theater director, who only has to lead the actors towards the common goal, or advise the lighting technician for particular effects, the cinema director must also control the editing, the photography and a whole set of elements that make his immense work.
The three phases of film directing
Not one but three jobs in one. The film director has to take care of the pre-production, the realization and the post-production.
Let’s see together what they consist of in the following lines.
Pre-production is that phase of work in which the actors get to know each other, interact together, sometimes read the script with the director, first establish how to make a scene or a gesture. Not all directors take care of pre-production , but those who do it (Ferzan Ozpetek, Carlo Verdone and Cristina Comencini, for example, are famous for this) manage to create such a united team that the film expresses extreme naturalness from the very first scenes. .
The making of the film foresees the intervention of the director on every single scene, in order to construct it, conduct it, correct it and eventually redo it.
Post-production, on the other hand, is all that work that is done afterwards and which determines the assembly of the various scenes, the quality of the sound and possible dubbing, the quality of the colors and lights in the screen vision and so on. It is not uncommon for a director to have to deal personally with production problems, that is, expenses.
There are insiders for this part, but a good director must always know the limits beyond which not to go.
The director-actor relationship
The conduct of a film is also based, and a lot, on the director-actor relationship .
The actor, by nature, tends to want the whole scene for himself and to do his own thing. A good director must be able to establish a relationship with him (or her) so confidential that he can direct him while making him believe that he (or she) is still in charge. A director who knows how to take care of the pre-production usually succeeds in this intent, creates a familiar, friendly and serene atmosphere on the set and the directives are given better.
But there are also directors who put too much personality in the direction of a film . They are those directors who are willing to fight, manipulate or even bully their actors in order to get results. James Cameron has a reputation for being a stern and authoritarian director on set, but then he produces masterpieces such as Titanic . Bernardo Bertolucci ( Last Tango in Paris, Little Buddha, Tea in the Desert ) also had a reputation for being too hard on his actors Di lui. With what exceptional results, though!
