"Directors who turn into big babies and shut out criticism stop learning"
About this Quote
There is a particular kind of power trip that comes with being “the director”: you’re the decider, the taste-maker, the person everyone waits on. Richard King punctures that romance by calling out what happens when authority gets confused with fragility. “Big babies” is pointedly undignified language, a way of stripping the role of its prestige and exposing the childish impulse underneath: if you can’t control the work, at least control the room by punishing dissent.
The intent is less self-help than professional hygiene. King isn’t praising “taking notes” as a polite virtue; he’s warning that defensiveness is an anti-learning technology. A director who “shuts out criticism” isn’t just protecting their ego, they’re narrowing the information pipeline. Film sets (and editing rooms) run on asymmetry: the director holds the vision, everyone else holds pieces of reality the director can’t see at once. Criticism is how those pieces get stitched into something coherent.
The subtext also reads as a quiet rebuke to auteur culture, where certainty is marketed as genius. King implies that mastery isn’t a steady state; it’s a practice maintained by exposure to friction. The moment you start treating feedback as an attack, you’re no longer directing the film, you’re directing people’s fear.
Contextually, coming from a working director, it lands as a field report: the best sets aren’t the ones with the loudest confidence, but the ones where someone can say “this isn’t working” without triggering a shutdown. The threat isn’t criticism. It’s stagnation dressed up as authority.
The intent is less self-help than professional hygiene. King isn’t praising “taking notes” as a polite virtue; he’s warning that defensiveness is an anti-learning technology. A director who “shuts out criticism” isn’t just protecting their ego, they’re narrowing the information pipeline. Film sets (and editing rooms) run on asymmetry: the director holds the vision, everyone else holds pieces of reality the director can’t see at once. Criticism is how those pieces get stitched into something coherent.
The subtext also reads as a quiet rebuke to auteur culture, where certainty is marketed as genius. King implies that mastery isn’t a steady state; it’s a practice maintained by exposure to friction. The moment you start treating feedback as an attack, you’re no longer directing the film, you’re directing people’s fear.
Contextually, coming from a working director, it lands as a field report: the best sets aren’t the ones with the loudest confidence, but the ones where someone can say “this isn’t working” without triggering a shutdown. The threat isn’t criticism. It’s stagnation dressed up as authority.
Quote Details
| Topic | Leadership |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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