There are certainly artists and filmmakers who can be difficult to deal with. Many of them are my good friends. Nothing wrong with being a curmudgeon.
But there is another side of the equation — writers who are full of themselves, and ignorant about the genre of film they are writing about — in short, jerks. I have had fine relations with many writers, and gone to a lot of effort (even in the pre-digital days) to provide specific frame blow-ups they requested (at no charge, of course). But there was a case where I was approached by a writer to be included in a book (commissioned, and funded by a large grant) about a particular sub-genre of film I was (not bragging here, just accurate) a pioneer of — autobiographical cinema-verite family films. Every question this writer asked was insulting, and clueless. He was under pressure to include my work because it was important to the history of this type of filmmaking, and influenced the work of many filmmakers (their sentiments, not mine). This author was extremely full of himself — and acted like it was a great privilege to have him write about one’s work. (There are some hilarious bits on the internet about other filmmakers lobbying to be included in one of his tomes, and his smug replies, toying with their desires to be one of his chosen few.) Fortunately, we distribute all of our films, and while there are some bootlegs out there it is not easy to see our work without going through us. So we simply did not make that work available. It meant being written out of a history of a type of film we are best known for, but sometimes you’d rather be ignored than included if you have no faith in the writer. Jeff Kreines Coosada, AL _______________________________________________ FrameWorks mailing list [email protected] https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
