Daily Inspiration Quote by Philip Kaufman

Kaufman’s sentence has the offhand, workmanlike candor of a director describing a victory that won’t look like one on a press tour. The language is all logistics - “exteriors,” “go back to L.A.” - but the emotional payload sits in that quiet verb: “fought.” He’s not romanticizing San Francisco as muse; he’s describing location as leverage, something you have to wrest from the gravitational pull of Hollywood’s convenience.

The subtext is a familiar industry tug-of-war: a script can “call for” a place, but budgets, unions, tax incentives, and studio habits call louder. “They wanted to initially shoot part of the film up here” frames the studio’s plan as a symbolic nod: grab establishing shots, return to the controlled economy of Los Angeles soundstages, and let the audience’s imagination do the rest. Kaufman’s “we really fought to get it up here” signals a belief that authenticity isn’t just scenic window dressing; it changes the texture of performances, the light, the street noise, the way a film breathes.

Then comes the diplomatic endgame: “Paramount was really pleased.” It’s a neat bit of institutional face-saving, converting creative stubbornness into corporate satisfaction. The line subtly rewrites conflict as collaboration after the fact - the director as insurgent who still speaks fluent studio. Culturally, it’s also a snapshot of a moment when American filmmaking was pushing against backlot artifice, insisting that place could be more than a postcard; it could be an argument the camera makes.