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One of the most brilliant things about art is that you can very rarely (if ever) be wrong. Art is ultimately subjective, its beauty only seen through the eye of the beholder. That’s why it irks me when people say others are wrong.

I don’t particularly enjoy Picasso. I don’t particularly enjoy rap music. I don’t particularly enjoy Italian operas. But I don’t consider any of them to be wrong. What I find enjoyable is certainly not universally enjoyable.

If I were running for office, my platform would be tolerance, I guess. Using an obvious parallel example, I consider, say, Hamlet to be the “Word of Shakespeare.” Hamlet is the most popular literary character in history. Not only that, but Hamlet is the most popular person in history, having the most books written about him ever. Astonishing, considering he’s a completely fictional character. At any given time, there is at least one production of Hamlet on stage in the world.

That’s a lot of Hamlets out there. Let’s say there are 500 productions of Hamlet going on in the world right now. That’s at least 500 directors with at least 500 different interpretations of Hamlet.

Are any of them wrong? No, not if they stay true to the original source. Are any of them poorly done? Probably. But poorly done does not equal wrong.

This sort of thing flows into all kinds of different genres and categories in life, from politics to religion, from art to music, from cooking to raising a child. There are all kinds of different ways to reach the same ends, all kinds of different ways to tell the same story, and all kinds of different ways to express ourselves.

From a director’s standpoint, I don’t think there is such thing as a “wrong” way to interpret any literary text, so long as you try to remain true to the original source. I think there are certainly ridiculous interpretations, innovative interpretations, and offensive interpretations. But is there really a wrong answer?

I suppose some day I’ll find out.