Film Watching Guilt

The key to this business, aside from having a rich Uncle with a Jewish surname who lives in LA, is to watch a lot of movies. The more you watch, the more you understand storytelling. The more you watch, the more you get what it truly is to be a truthful actor. The more you watch, the more you understand what makes a truly great scene great. There is no end to this --- literally, if you watch three films today instead of two, you're going to learn more. We should be clambering to watch films all the time... waking up early to watch a DVD, glancing down at videos on your iPhone during long train journeys, and staying up two hours late to watch 'Shawshank Redemption' for the 9th time in two months. In fact, there was a time we were like this. But then, we started listening to this.

UNCLE FRED
Is that all you do, sit around watching movies all day?

GIRLFRIEND JENNY
Couldn't you do something more productive instead? Like WORK?

JED
You've seen that already.

MICHAEL THE FLORIST
How's it going sitting at home watching your little movies?

BERT WHO HATES HIS JOB
Stop watching movies and actually do something with your life.

Before you know it -- every time you watch a film, you hear a voice saying "get up! do something! write a script! earn some money! be productive!" Despite all of your youth being incredibly enlightening and productive and inspiring and driving you towards your SOLE GOAL in life - to CREATE, instead; you start smashing up against it--- building a giant wall the size of a giant wall which stops you from ever settling. You start to sneak past the wall late at night, when it's late enough to not be 'the time people do productive things' but not so late that you look like 'someone who can stay up late because they're a waster' and you sneakily watch a film. But even then, you struggle, because this voice in your head is saying "is that all you do, watch movies? you waster!"

So now your Uncle and the florist and the guy who hates his job and his life and his wife; they all are in your head and they're telling you to stop watching movies. So you have this big giant wall the size of a big giant wall and you keep climbing over it onto both sides... every time you're watching a movie the voice says "BE PRODUCTIVE! DO SOMETHING!" so you climb over to the other side. And every time you're on that side there's a part of you that says "I love movies! I need movies! Movies are my everything!" -- so you climb to the other side. But you keep climbing and you keep feeling TIRED because somehow you've got caught between who you are, where you're going, and where everyone thinks you need to be.

If you write, or direct, or produce, or act, or dream, or design, or want to take a different route in life; then watching movies is absolutely essential. We are here, precisely, to WATCH movies, LEARN from movies and then CREATE movies. That's why we're here. Stop denying it, celebrate it. To watch movies is to be productive. To watch movies is to jump fifty steps towards your ultimate goal in life. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

"It enters through a different opening in your body. For instance, in order to be a jazz musician, you have to listen and listen and listen to a lot of Jazz. And that's an act of love. You don't think, I'm listening to study it. You just listen because you love it. And you love it, and love it... and gradually you learn. You really learn everything valuable through osmosis. It's the same with play-writing or movie-directing or acting. You love either reading or watching films or plays or listening to music. And in some way, over the years, without making any attempt, it gets into your blood, into the fibre of your body or something. If you want to teach someone film-directing, you could almost say, 'just keep going to the movies, and it will pass into your body."

-Woody Allen
Writer/Director
Three Time Academy Award Winner.