Daily Inspiration Quote by Karel Reisz

Reisz cuts through a century of film-school fetish objects with a single demotion: technique is not the point. Camera angles, “fancy footwork,” the whole choreography of cinematic showing-off, are just surface flourishes unless they’re tethered to something harder to fake - an opinion. In his phrasing, “style” isn’t decoration but diagnosis: the visible trace of how a director judges the world.

The key word is “accurate.” Reisz isn’t giving license for quirks or branding; he’s demanding alignment. If your worldview is skeptical, tender, angry, class-conscious, your formal choices should tell the truth about that stance. Otherwise the movie becomes a lie told beautifully - a slick grammar with nothing urgent to say. Coming out of British New Wave realism and documentary habits, Reisz is staking a claim against both Hollywood gloss and empty modernist virtuosity. He’s arguing for craft as ethics: form should answer to belief.

There’s also a quiet political undertone in “particular opinion.” It pushes against the fantasy that directors are neutral observers. Even “objective” filmmaking, Reisz implies, is a set of preferences and exclusions: where the camera stands is where you stand. That’s why the line still bites in an era of algorithmic content and franchise visual sameness. When everything can be shot competently, style becomes the measurable residue of conviction - proof that a film was made by someone, not merely produced.