While working on my soon to be published book on British cinema and identity I accumulated a lot of quotes about films in general.
These are some of my favourites:
- “Film is not the art of scholars but of illiterates. And film culture is not analysis, it is the agitation of the mind” – Werner Herzog
- “The study of the film as a means to human understanding is not a mere intellectual exercise. It is part of a continuing study we have all got to make in our search for harmony in a tortured world.” – Ross McLean, Head, Films & Visual Information Division, Unesco
- “Marginal cinema is now the only form of national cinema” – Meaghan Morris
- “The problem is not to make political films, but to make films politically.” —Jean-Luc Godard
- “If there’s a corridor, there’s a film” – Céline Sciamma
- “Films that are entertainments give simple answers but I think that’s ultimately more cynical, as it denies the viewer room to think. If there are more answers at the end, then surely it is a richer experience.” – Michael Haneke
- “Sometimes film needs the room to dream” – David Lynch
- ‘I’d rather people feel a film before understanding it.’ – Robert Bresson
- “Film is a highly evocative ideological sphere. It does not reflect its time or society; instead it reinforces, moulds, twists and subverts the many truths of culture.” – Tara Brabazon
- “The created world must obey its own logic” – V.F. Perkins
Spare a thought for lonely film critics in the age of streaming. They are an increasingly marginalized and, some would say, dying breed.
