Academy Award winning writer and director Robert Benton spoke to graduate students in the Department of Film and Television on Friday, September 7. Benton, who won Oscars for Kramer vs. Kramer and Places in the Heart, recently directed Feast of Love starring Morgan Freeman and Greg Kinnear. He spoke extensively about his launch into the business and offered advice to the standing-room-only crowd. View photos.
   
“All movies are is time management,” he said. “At the most fundamental level, you have to manage time. It’s the mark of how good you are as a director, as a screenwriter.”
   
Benton told students to draw from what was done in the past and what they know from their own lives. He also said that he often writes or revises a script 40 to 50 times.
   
“All that matters is getting it right,” he said.

In addition to his advice, he discussed his early childhood difficulties in reading due to his battle with dyslexia. He said that his father would take him to the movie theater where he was enamored by the visual storytelling; and he said that when he walked out of a movie, he felt like “a different person in a different world.”

“It was an honor to have Robert Benton share his insight about screenwriting, directing, and the world in general with the students and faculty at COM,” said College of Communication Dean ad interim Tobe Berkovitz. “Mr. Benton demonstrated why he is such an important force in the history of the cinema in America.”