Lesson On Criticism I Learned From Pablo Casals by UCLA Professor Richard Walter Video Lecture | Screenwriting: From Beginner to a Pro - Career Development

if someone goes to see someone's film
and the filmmaker asks their best friend
or an audience member what did you think
in the vein of being honest do you tell
them or do you try to save their
feelings what a good question generally
a lie what a lot of to be honest a lot
of people who think they're being honest
really being hostile they're resentful
and they're jealous oh there's an
example of it that went around Hollywood
about a year ago kind of went viral it
was called no I won't read your
screenplay that's what what it was
called and some guy who had been asked
to read somebody script and told him
what he thought was that the truth you
know my sister is a very well-known
actor and she was on a few years ago I
saw her on an episode of a series where
she was a guest and it was just the the
most dreadful episode of a horrible
series and one was only I saw the
episode what did I say to her I said to
her you looked beautiful which she did
and when she does she's famously
beautiful she is a movie star and looks
like a movie star and and I said when
you came on the screen when you came on
you know into the episode the scenes
that didn't love you suddenly it was
engaging and interesting and and worthy
with the one is true instead of my
Cinque Terre how could you be associated
with that garbage I mean that's not what
she did she did very well we do we are
upbeat here this is a difference between
us and some other institutions including
our resistors across town my alma mater
where they are rough and tough tough
love and all of that and they really
think they like to beat up on artists
and that's what goes on a lot in a lot
of arts education not just in
screenwriting and they argue across town
that that's good training for Hollywood
because you don't deal
after the other hearts up now let me say
three things to that
if somebody has the courage to
put it on the page you need to be
generous you need to be affirming you
need to be nourishing and loving and you
know not hostile to me and rude and
belligerent
so what I will do if I read a really
really useless worthless
I mean people send me scripts all the
time these descriptions just come from
recently from off-campus and I don't
know how to turn people down say no I
won't read your script I mean I just
consider myself so fortunate to cross
paths with people who are creative and
have the courage to be creative and to
write it down and offer it up for
somebody to give an opinion about it
that that is not a burden but a blessing
in my life that people cross paths with
me that way for me I consider it a
blessing when I get a really really
dreadful script I'll find something
positive to say you know sometimes it's
like being a plastic surgeon with a burn
victim looking for some a few cells to
start a graft you know but they're
always something that you you could say
that's positive and you know and then
mentioned there were other issues that
need to be visited here relative to this
and that the other thing in my book
essentials of screenwriting I write
about my experience with my father whom
I mentioned earlier he played with all
of the greats of the last century
including Don Pablo Casals the master
cellist
they say Spanish he's actually he would
say he's got two lung and he lived in
Puerto Rico he would not live in Spain
under Franco el Lupo Rico and I went to
Puerto Rico to the Casal Festival
there's a he's now long deceased but
they still have the Kazan festival back
then he was alive he wasn't playing
cello but he was conducting
and I I watched him teach I saw him give
some master classes and the artists
would come in nervous it's this is
Casals you know the master cellist
in the world in his in his day and one
of the Google time masters of cello so
you'd see her play and he would sit
there and listen and I grew up in the
world of virtual world-class music and
to me it sounds you didn't just walking
off the street to take a lesson you know
there was a shingle it's a music lessons
you know didn't work they got to be
really good to study with Casals so to
me it sounded very very good she'd
finish and he would sit there and he
would nod sort of severely and she'd be
really nervous you could to see the
finally he would say and by the way the
first time I saw this I thought of
spontaneous and I realized he does this
every time exactly the same way it's the
way he works the way he teaches he would
finally say beautiful beautiful and then
you could see the shoulders it's funny
cuz my wife and I just saw Lynn Harrell
and the Philharmonic on Saturday night
and it was beautiful
told my cello virtuoso celli cellists
and you could see the shoulders relaxed
you know on on the the woman who was on
the man who was a student in question
and he'd be kind of watching out of the
corner of his eye for that and as soon
as they did relax then he would say as
if it was an afterthought but really was
clearly the first thing on his mind was
perhaps even more beautiful if the
intonation and the phrasing and he would
really take on the weaknesses and and
the shortcomings of it and some but he'd
won the safety of the artist she felt
like him he was on her side and that is
our guiding philosophy here this is not
an adversarial Enterprise and certainly
in the film school and then film isn't
an adversarial Enterprise a lot of
writers will tell me and they'll tell
you and they'll tell anybody they stop
people on the street and tell you that
the
thing about film writing for film if so
many people come between you and the
film the final piece of work and I say
to them that's not the downside that's
the upside that's the fun of being in
film that you get to be part of a know a
family of artists and craftspeople and
and all different kinds of skills and
diverse sorts of talents that come
together to make this one thing which is
the movie and then they mess it up but
more likely they'll make it even better
than you imagined it could be and the
trick is to not get into a turf
territorial struggle with them not
merely to tolerate that but to rejoice
in that to embrace that to celebrate
that to solicit that so I forget
whatever we were going with that but I
guess it has to do with with the fact of
our point of view here at UCLA the way
we teach we think teaching also want to
be not the faculty beating up on the
students but everybody supporting
everybody else you know I've taught so
much here over the last 35 years but
I've learned much more than I've taught
and my teachers are my students so it's
you know it's win-win
you