Stanley Kubrick on linguistic fieldwork

Jul 29, 2013

I have found that when you finally come down to the day the scene is going to be shot of the elicitation and you arrive on the location with the actors speakers, having had the experience of already seeing some scenes shot data, somehow it’s always different. You find out that you have not really explored the scene language to its fullest extent. You may have been thinking about it incorrectly, or you may simply not have discovered one of the variations which now in context with everything else that you have shot elicited is simply better than anything you had previously thought of. The reality of the final moment, just before shooting, is so powerful that all previous analysis must yield before the impressions you receive under these circumstances, and unless you use this feedback to your positive advantage, unless you adjust to it, adapt to it and accept the sometimes terrifying weaknesses it can expose, you can never realize the most out of your film fieldwork.

— Stanley Kubrick