An Artist Must Either Give

The Problem With A Popular Art Form Is That Those Who Want Something More Are In A Hopeless Minority Compared With The Millions Who Are Always Seeing It For The First Time, Or For The Reassurance And Gratification Of Seeing The Conventions Fulfilled Again.

He [bernardo Bertolucci] Has The Kind Of Talent That Breaks One's Heart: Where Can It Go, What Will Happen To It? In This Country We Encourage 'creativity' Among The Mediocre, But Real Bursting Creativity Appalls Us. We Put It Down As Undisciplined, As Somehow 'too Much.' Well, Before The Revolution Is Too Much And That Is What Is Great About It. Art Doesn't Come In Measured Quantities: It's Got To Be Too Much Or It's Not Enough.

There Seems To Be An Assumption That If You're Offended By Movie Brutality, You Are Somehow Playing Into The Hands Of The People Who Want Censorship. But This Would Deny Those Of Us Who Don't Believe In Censorship The Use Of The Only Counter-balance: The Freedom Of The Press To Say That There's Anything Conceivably Damaging In These Films - The Freedom To Analyze Their Implications. How Can People Go On Talking About The Dazzling Brilliance Of Movies And Not Notice That The Directors Are Sucking Up To The Thugs In The Audience?

Movies Have Been Doing So Much Of The Same Thing - In Slightly Different Ways - For So Long That Few Of The Possibilities Of This Great Hybrid Art Have Yet Been Explored.

If There Is Any Test That Can Be Applied To Movies, It's That The Good Ones Never Make You Feel Virtuous.