Screenwriting 101: Walter Bernstein

“I love movies. I love movies. I still get that frisson when I go on a movie set — the most boring business in the world — but I feel that same thing I felt when I walked on the lot of Columbia in ’47: I’m here! It’s always meant that to me. I’ve always wanted to be part of making movies.

I accept the cooperative nature of filmmaking. It’s one of the things that attracts me to movies, that idea. I love working with other people, so that I never feel, or have never felt — maybe it’s a lack of ego — bitter. I accept the nature of that beast — not just accept it, I like it. When I’m working with people I respect, who add creatively to the whole of the thing, I find it exhilarating. I’m a sucker for any kind of communality or community, anywhere but especially, when it’s working well, within a film.”

— Walter Bernstein (Fail-Safe, The Front, Semi-Tough)

From “Backstory 3: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1960s”

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