LESSONS WITH KIAROSTAMI
In 2005, I attended a film workshop with Abbas Kiarostami in Potenza, Basilicata. A group of young directors and writers came together for a week. Kiarostami was not always easy, quite confrontational and often silent, but provocative and inspiring - especially when revealing how he shoots in cars - feeding lines to non-professional actors to match up with what he had shot with the actor the day before.
“Consider a character suffering from anxiety. What image can you create to represent that emotion? No dialogue.”
“There is an optimal number of words to tell a story. It is almost always the smallest number.”
“This small film, this experiment will pave the way for more expansive and expressive ideas. Got outside and get a shot you like - a single image - and build a film around it. Film anything at all. You can decide what it means afterwards. Just get to work. Subject what you create to consciousness and understanding only afterwards.””
“Too many films have a constantly shifting viewpoint. When filming a scene, fixed camera angles - and only a limited number of them - are preferable. For the past few days, I have been sitting here on this chair, in this corner of the room, which is the equivalent of a single camera, a single angle, a single point of view. We see and hear each other. There is no need for us to move.”
This book was edited by Paul Cronin, who attended many of Kiarostami’s workshops. It’s full of insights and is based on pages and pages of notes Paul took from his conversations with Kiarostami. It’s available on Amazon.