7/16/16

"The worst thing that could happen to a director is that someone starts calling them a master. It's an empty word, one that runs contrary to the way cinema, which is bigger than any director, works. It's got a really bad tendency to catch on, too. Two possible things that can happen: a promising director will let the word go to his or her head; a great director will ignore it and keep living the same way they always have, though that tends to do nothing to stop the tales of their "mastery." Great directors are therefore always damned, and in a sense Renoir has been damned by reputation for unsurmountable perfection, even though part of the greatness of his films lies in their rough, human mess."