There Is, In Any Art, A Tendency

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.

In The Sixties, The Recycling Of Pop Culture Turning It Into Pop Art And Camp Had Its Own Satirical Zest. Now We're Into A Different Kind Of Recycling. Moviemakers Give Movies Of The Past An Authority That Those Movies Didn't Have; They Inflate Images That May Never Have Compelled Belief, Images That Were No More Than Shorthand Gestures And They Use Them Not As Larger-than-life Jokes But As Altars.

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?

Economy, Speed, Nervousness, And Desperation Produce The Final Wasteful, Semi-incoherent Movies We See.

I Am Mystified. I Know Only One Person Who Voted For Nixon.