How quickly a truly benevolent act is repaid by the consciousness of having done it!
All good art is about something deeper than it admits.
People send me e-mails saying, "You're a movie critic. You don't know anything about politics. " Well, you know what, I'm 60 years old, and I've been interested in politics since I was on my daddy's knee. During the 1948 election, we were praying for Truman. I know a lot about politics.
[Alan Berg's] memory haunts many people, even those who never heard him on the radio, because his death could be read as a message: Be cautious, be prudent, be bland, never push anybody, never say what you really think, offer yourself as a hostage to the weirdos even before they make the first move. These days, a lot of people are opposed to the newfound popularity of 'trash television,' and no doubt they are right, and the hosts of these shows are shameless controversy-mongers. But at least they are not intimidated. Of what use is freedom of speech to those who fear to offend?
If your religion doesn't respect the rights of other religions, it is lacking something.
Films like Fargo are why I love the movies.
The fact is, most people are not going to be rich someday. And we've had a concerted policy of taking money away from the poor and giving it to the rich wholesale, and at the same time, we have the runaway corporations, and the greed.
I wouldn't take a directing job if I didn't think it was enriching life.
But I knew one more thing. That people w ho denied who they were or where they had been were in the greatest danger.
We are the children of a technological age. We have found streamlined ways of doing much of our routine work. Printing is no longer the only way of reproducing books. Reading them, however, has not changed.
It's not the critic who counts.