Chutzpah binds the craft and psychology of directing. David K. Irving explains why confidence is hard to acquire yet essential, and how to build it.
Chutzpah is the element that binds all the craft and psychology a director can muster. Chutzpah is an intangible. Hard to explain, difficult to acquire, yet essential to directing. This is what drives a director, separates the uninspired from the innovative, and provides armor to handle rejection. It is the passion to cling to an idea like a drowning sailor to a wooden plank. Chutzpah is utter nerve, guts, spunk, and gumption. Ultimately, it smacks of courage. “Courage,” said Winston Churchill, “is the greatest virtue; it makes all the others possible.”
Too much chutzpah is obnoxious, too little ineffectual. There is an extremely fine line between assertiveness and aggression. The proper amount of chutzpah spells someone who is aggressively self-assured. In the shark-infested sea of show business, this quality is what keeps a director’s head above water. The film industry is divided between those people whose job it is to say ‘no’ and those who say ‘yes’. It is so much easier to say ‘no’. No to risk, no to uniqueness, no to new talent, no to experimentation. If an executive says ‘no’ to a film that does wind up getting made and then flops, that executive is vindicated. And, in fact, more films flop than hit the jackpot. (I won’t dwell on the fates of those who said ‘no’ to Star Wars.)
Someone must say ‘yes’ or films wouldn’t get made. ‘Yes’ means committing huge sums of money. ‘Yes’ means mustering large numbers of people. ‘Yes’ means possible unemployment for the yes-ee. One of the best reasons to say ‘yes’ is to hire a director who has unflagging passion for the project. For a producer to hand a production over to a director, the producer must be confidant in that director’s ability to deliver.
Chutzpah and passion do not translate into success. Although craft and passion make a great one-two punch, too many other factors contribute to a film’s success to make any venture sure-fire. There is no formula for success; otherwise all films would hit their mark. But one can surely imagine the opposite. How would a producer feel about a project if the director committed by saying in a subdued tone, “Sure, why not?” Or, “Okay, I guess I can do it.”
Chutzpah is not jumping up and down on a table shouting, “I can do it! I can do it!” It’s an unspoken quality that makes everyone associated with the enterprise convinced this director, and only this director, is the anointed one. The director exudes passion that infects the company with confidence. This infection is the glue that holds the company together, through thick and thin.
Akira Kurosawa once said, “I am a director…that is all. I know myself well enough to know that if I ever lost my passion for films, then I myself would be lost. Film is what I am about.” This total commitment to the craft, this unbridled enthusiasm, is gold to a producer. Directors with passion know about their dedication from an early age. They often begin as a cineaste. They get the bug by being transported by the works of both contemporary and classic directors of note. Many family members will say this zeal is foolish, but as Edgar Allan Poe once said, “I have great faith in fools—self-confidence my friends call it.”
Terry Gilliam said (when making Brazil), “Like most of my projects I ended up wanting to do more than I was capable of doing.” Directors constantly strive for excellence. They push themselves and the cast and crew who surround the picture.
There is no room for mediocrity in cinema. The most serious crime in show business is to bore an audience. Alfred Hitchcock, in a 1947 press interview said, “I aim to provide the public with beneficial shocks. Civilization has become so protective that we’re no longer able to get our goose bumps instinctively. The only way to remove the numbness and revive our moral equilibrium is to use artificial means to bring about the shock. The best way to achieve that, it seems to me, is through a movie.”
Sometimes it is necessary to push the material so as to shock the audience from their complacency. These are akin to growth spurts. Once upon a time, a character could be killed on screen by a single gunshot and no blood. Then comes color, then blood packs, then multiple blood packs, then spurting blood packs, and then slow motion spurting blood packs. Once a trend has been established, directors rarely go back to olden ways. Instead, they build off the common practice and blaze new trails.
Chutzpah is so widespread in the industry, it is an assumed bravado. Luis Buñuel flaunted this trait when his film, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie was nominated for an Oscar. Four Mexican reporters asked him if he thought he was going to win that Oscar. “Of course,” he quipped. “I’ve already paid the $25,000 they wanted. Americans may have their weaknesses, but they do keep their promises.” A few days later, headlines in Mexico City announced that Buñuel had bought the Oscar.
One would like to imagine talent is sufficient for success. Talent is a good thing, and it may be the key to longevity in the film business, but talent without chutzpah withers on the vine. In real estate, they say, ‘location, location, location.’ In film it’s ‘persistence, persistence, persistence.’ Most people in the industry work a 60-hour week. Persistence is enduring hardship and stress. To have talent and wait by the phone will only get you a sore butt. To be a filmmaker, one has to make film. Start and never stop. Some of the work will be good, some bad, some excellent, and some horrendous. It is the body of work that makes a filmmaker, not one movie.
Although many directors and actors are well paid for their services, money should be a minor factor in deciding whether or not to do a film. Luis Buñuel said it best: “As unlikely as it may sound, I’ve never been able to discuss the amount of money offered to me when I sign a contract. Either I accept or refuse, but I never argue. I don’t think I’ve ever done something for money that I didn’t want to do; and when I don’t want to do something, no offer can change my mind. What I won’t do for one dollar, I also won’t do for a million.”
Directors who break the mold, take risks and persist against overwhelming odds are said to have chutzpah. Eric Von Stroheim was only allowed to make nine silent films because of his extravagance. But they are some of the greatest films ever made.
When Fritz Lang was so far over budget on Metropolis that the production had to be shut down, he merely waited until the additional financing was raised. “The production company is invested so heavily in the film, they must finish it to make their money back. Kurosawa played the same waiting game on The Seven Samurai.” (Donald Richie)
John Ford insisted on shooting his films on location in Monument Valley. Preston Sturges demanded to direct in exchange for selling his screenplays for a dollar. Francis Ford Coppola shot The Godfather in extremely low light, and Stanley Kubrick expatriated to England to distance himself from the studios.
A very talented director went to Paris to direct a play by Shakespeare, Henry V, at the famous Academie Francaise. The director had never directed a Shakespearian drama before. With fear and intimidation, he faced the incredibly well-trained and disciplined actors for the first rehearsal. The director looked into the determined faces of the actors, trained professionals familiar with drama, knowledgeable about Shakespeare. He knew if he admitted to these actors he had never directed any Shakespeare play prior to this experience, he would be not be able to gain their confidence and exercise the command necessary to execute the role of director. So he lied. He greeted the cast and announced that he had just come from Germany where he had successfully staged three of Shakespeare’s history dramas, including the play schedule for the Academie Française, Henry V. The actors then picked up their scripts and began the first read-through.
David K. Irving is a film director, writer, producer, and an Associate Professor in film production at New York University. He has written and directed dozens of documentaries, and his feature directing credits include Night of the Cyclone, C.H.U.D. II, The Emperor’s New Clothes, Sleeping Beauty and Rumpelstiltskin.
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