"There is no reason why challenging themes and engaging stories have to be mutually exclusive - in fact, each can fuel the other. As a filmmaker, I want to entertain people first and foremost. If out of that comes a greater awareness and understanding of a time or a circumstance, then the hope is that change can happen"
About this Quote
Zwick is throwing a polite punch at the prestige-movie reflex that treats seriousness as a kind of penance. His claim isnt radical so much as corrective: the idea that entertainment and moral inquiry are opposites is a convenient alibi for bad storytelling on one side and empty spectacle on the other. By insisting that challenging themes and engaging stories "fuel" each other, he frames craft not as a sugar-coating for politics, but as the delivery system. If the audience isnt hooked, the message never arrives.
The subtext is industry-savvy. Zwick made his name on big-canvas historical dramas (Glory, Legends of the Fall, The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond) that want both box office oxygen and ethical weight. This quote reads like a defense brief for that lane: narrative momentum earns the right to ask difficult questions. He also sidesteps the trap of didacticism. "Entertain people first and foremost" signals humility toward the viewer, an implicit rejection of the filmmaker as lecturer. Yet the next sentence quietly reasserts ambition: awareness is the gateway drug to change.
Context matters because Zwick came up in an era when "issue films" were often marketed as homework with Oscar aspirations. His formulation offers a more pragmatic politics: you dont convert people by scolding them; you move them by letting them feel history at human scale. Its liberal humanism, yes, but sharpened by a directors understanding that empathy is not automatic. You have to engineer it with pacing, character, and suspense, then let the audience believe the insight was their own.
The subtext is industry-savvy. Zwick made his name on big-canvas historical dramas (Glory, Legends of the Fall, The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond) that want both box office oxygen and ethical weight. This quote reads like a defense brief for that lane: narrative momentum earns the right to ask difficult questions. He also sidesteps the trap of didacticism. "Entertain people first and foremost" signals humility toward the viewer, an implicit rejection of the filmmaker as lecturer. Yet the next sentence quietly reasserts ambition: awareness is the gateway drug to change.
Context matters because Zwick came up in an era when "issue films" were often marketed as homework with Oscar aspirations. His formulation offers a more pragmatic politics: you dont convert people by scolding them; you move them by letting them feel history at human scale. Its liberal humanism, yes, but sharpened by a directors understanding that empathy is not automatic. You have to engineer it with pacing, character, and suspense, then let the audience believe the insight was their own.
Quote Details
| Topic | Movie |
|---|
More Quotes by Edward
Add to List
