Why did Serling eschew feature films and directing?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Rod Serling
CooperCamden — 13 years ago(May 22, 2012 04:52 PM)
If you examine his oeuvre, he wrote/produced virtually no theatrical features, and never directed anything. Did he hate relinquishing control? Was he bored by the technical aspects of filmmaking? It seems he was content to write primarily for TV, and producing was, I suppose, a way of maintaining his personal vision.
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kapnkirk — 13 years ago(May 29, 2012 07:30 AM)
He wrote a few feature screenplays -Planet of the Apes, 7 Days in May, Assault on a Queen and Requiem for a Heavyweight-but Rod saw himself primarily as a writer not as a producer or director. Feature films take forever to get made and then there are endless revisions and re-writes so he preferred the immediacy (and control) of TV. He thought very highly of TV and its 5b4importance in the 50s to mid 60s but became disillusioned with it because it didn't want to tackle social issues any longer (in his opinion).
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