The Art of Killing Your Darlings with Impunity
Why detachment is the key to creating great art: A film director’s perspective
I stood in the dimly lit theatre, nervous sweat flowing down my back despite the air conditioning and the smiling faces looking at me from the crowd. My film had just been screened before what seemed like two hundred discerning French film enthusiasts.
They appeared to like it, in fact, an elderly French lady, who has possibly lived through at least one war and many years of croissants looked back at me and whispered in her best English, “You have talent. Keep making movies.” These are powerful words, especially for a young lad who is still trying to figure out if he can go from amateur to professional. It’s like cocaine to the ego.
As much as I appreciated the old mademoiselle’s words, I was unsure if the sentiment was shared by everyone else. There was a roaring applause, but I was also aware that social politeness was not synonymous with honesty. And I, more than anyone else, was keenly aware of the flaws of my film.
Perhaps it’s the curse of every artist to aim for perfection and never attain it due to a lack of time, energy, and plenty of ignorance. But alas, the innocence of youth is a glutton for external validation.
The first few questions were quite tempered, and I answered them with equal temperance. Nothing special, just the standard ‘…it was quite the experience…’, ‘…the juxtaposition of the two shots imply that…’ and so on. I just hoped the translator wasn’t feeling particularly impish that day.
Then came the uppercut. A question from a fellow filmmaker who had made one of my favorite films at the festival. She was kind enough to cushion the question with enough tact that it did not bruise my ego while still remaining pointed.
“I loved your movie; it made me tear up at the end,” she began. “And there were a lot of beautiful shots in your movie. A lot of them have deep metaphors for the viewer to chew on. I did, however, feel that they cut away from serious moments of drama, distracting me from the emotion of the moment. Was there a particular reason for editing it that way? Was it an artistic choice?”
Damn! I said to myself. I was dreading this. Despite all the good things about the movie, there was a fundamental flaw — it was indulgent. As Hoffman said, “There is no pleasure that I haven’t made myself sick on.”
Perhaps I fancied myself Andrei Tarkovsky, who wouldn’t, but the truth was I wasn’t, and it was evident. However, the real reason was that I had spent a lot of time and energy planning and executing those “beautiful” shots. They were the children of my imagination, and discarding them at the edit table felt callous.
However, shots are not really children, and deep down, I knew that I just wanted people to go — ‘Oh, wow! how did he think of that?’; ‘What genius!’ Masturbation at its finest, and I was caught red-handed, no pun intended.
Now, I had a choice here. I could faff my way through this and say why the artistic choice was made and how it enriched the original vision I had for the film — more masturbation for the public. But I never fancied myself as an exhibitionist, and I was not ready to start now. So, I had to make the alternate choice, the harder choice certainly — the truth.
“As much as I’d like to say that it was an artistic choice, the truth is that it was a mistake. As they say, one must kill their darlings on the edit table. This is an example of how the darlings were not killed, and they took down the whole thing with them. There is a lot for me to learn as a filmmaker, and this is my first hard-earned lesson.”
Truth, I have found, has always been impressive. Hard, painful even, but always impressive.
I noticed the reaction on the French faces as the translator communicated my words, that they appreciated my answer. I was sure every one of them felt something like the questioner did on some level. And the fact that I chose the truth was a welcome alternative to the pseudo-intellectual diatribe one was often exposed to in these circles. I don’t say this to toot my horn, for I, too, have dabbled in the dark arts from time to time to sound smarter than I am.
According to Rick Rubin:
“Oscar Wilde said that some things are too important to be taken seriously. Art is one of those things. Setting the bar low, especially to get started, frees you to play, explore, and test without attachment to results.”
I often wondered what separates great works of art from the rest. And what allows an artist to distill an idea to its very essence to the point that its potency bypasses the audience’s rational mind and touches something deep within their soul? Something primal and yet divine.
I have always come to the same conclusion that to reach that point of the creative pinnacle, all an artist has to do is shed every layer of their personae and stand naked before their art. A mirror can only reflect what you present before it.
However, to stand naked before a mirror and present to it all your flaws, imperfections, and love handles without feeling shame and regret requires a level of detachment. ‘Detachment from what?’ you may be inclined to ask.
Detachment from yourself, more accurately, a detachment from who think your self is. Killing your darlings is really the act of killing your ego.
The Importance of Detachment in Art
The reason why this detachment is so important is because the process of creation requires the creator to be present in the moment without thinking of all the laurels that await them or the money that may follow.
That does not mean all those things are meaningless, at least not in a material sense, but having those thoughts in the forefront of your mind during the process of creation clouds the act of creation. And what could’ve been Picasso is now simply a wasted canvas.
In a world that seems meaningless on the surface, art is meaning. And meaning does not have underlying motives. It simply is.
“Understand: you are one of a kind. Your character traits are a kind of chemical mix that will never be repeated in history. There are ideas unique to you, a specific rhythm and perspective that are your strengths, not your weaknesses. You must not be afraid of your uniqueness and you must care less and less what people think of you.” — Robert Greene
To get to this point of true detachment, you must reflect and mine deep into your psyche by asking the right questions. And if you wonder what the right questions are, they are the ones that make you uncomfortable, maybe even cause a sort of existential suffering.
But slowly, as you shed these ideas and these social constructs embedded within you, you will see reality the way it really is. Or paradoxically, the way only you can see it.
You can strike a chord that resonates among the collective by being the opposite — an individual. You have the ability to pierce through the facade of the many and make them see their individuality. That is the stuff of dreams, which, in reality, manifest.
So, go ahead and kill your darlings. Kill them with impunity.
Let go so that you can have, and have so that you can give.
And it does not matter if you will go down in the annals of history as one of the greats because, in the immortal words of Albus Dumbledore, “…perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it.”
Thank you for reading my story.
