“What I react against in other people’s work, as a filmgoer, is when I see something in a movie that I feel is supposed to make me feel emotional, but I don’t believe the filmmaker shares that emotion. They just think the audience will. And I think you can feel that separation. So any time I find myself writing something that I don’t really respond to, but I’m telling myself, ‘Oh yes, but the audience is going to like this,’ then I know I’m on the wrong track and I just throw it out.”
Writer/director Christopher Nolan (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises)
Interview with Jeff Goldsmith
Best of Creative Screenwriting Volume 2
Related post: 40 Days of Emotion
Another helpful insight on screenwriting that I felt connected with Nolan’s:
The right way to see a film objectively is to play it twice. Screen about 10 minutes
without sound and see the movie. Rewind, turn the picture off and audition that
same 10 minutes with sound only. Now you’re ready to study the whole movie,
aware of its visual ‘film form’ and the aural/verbal ‘play’ as distinct elements.
-Alan von Altendorf, contributor/editor of Screenplay Form & Structure
Continues on with the theme of getting to see what is truly there. (Quote from http://www.duckdiversified.com)