Robert Wise
Robert Wise
Robert Earl Wisewas an American film director, producer and editor. He won Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for both West Side Storyand The Sound of Music. He was also nominated for Best Film Editing for Citizen Kaneand directed and produced The Sand Pebbles, which was nominated for Best Picture...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth10 September 1914
CityWinchester, IN
CountryUnited States of America
Some of the more esoteric critics claim there's no Robert Wise style,
Some of the more esoteric critics claim that there's no Robert Wise style or stamp. My answer to that is that I've tried to approach each genre in a cinematic style that I think is right for that genre. I wouldn't have approached 'The Sound of Music' the way I approached 'I Want to Live!' for anything, and that accounts for a mix of styles.
Citizen Kane was a marvelous film to work on--well planned and well-shot,
I remember the house we lived in, the grade school, the junior high and high school. I remember one time we had a fire in the high school so we couldn't go there. We had to go to the junior high school for a year.
I had to come out here and go to work and I came off all right,
It was just a job to start with, you know,
I'd rather do my own thing, which has been to choose projects that take me into all different kinds of genres. I don't have a favorite kind of film to make. I just look for the best material I can find.
You know, people always think if you start out as a film editor, you shoot less footage. Actually, just the opposite is true. I tend to grab as much coverage as I can because as a former editor I know how important it is to have those few frames.
You can't tell any kind of a story without having some kind of a theme, something to say between the lines.
You look back on films sometimes and if they have not been as all-out successful as you anticipated you try to find reasons why maybe it didn't come off for audiences as well as you would have liked.
A reflection of my feelings about the space program is found in a quotation from Charles A. Lindbergh's "Autobiography of Values." It reads, "Whether outwardly or inwardly, whether in space or time, the farther we penetrate the unknown, the vaster and more marvelous it becomes."
Of all the stars whom I worked with, I think Steve knew better what worked for him on the screen than any other. He had such a sense of what he could register, and that helped a lot in terms of shaping the character and the script.
The Sand Pebbles has always been one of my favorite films, I suppose because its the most difficult film - from a physical and logistical standpoint - that I've ever made.
A Mac is a closed box, so Apple can make decisions about things that they don't include. That makes, it in some ways, simpler for them.