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The Cinema
- joe gillis: You used to be in pictures. You used to be big.
norma desmond: I am big. It's the pictures that got small.1892–1969 and 1906–2002 American screenwriters: Sunset Boulevard (1950 film, with D. M. Marshman Jr.) - There are no rules in filmmaking. Only sins. And the cardinal sin is dullness.1897–1991 Italian-born American film director: in People 16 September 1991
- If my books had been any worse, I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better, I should not have come.1888–1959 American writer of detective fiction: letter to Charles W. Morton, 12 December 1945
- Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is ‘elephant’.on the universality of silent films1889–1977 English film actor and director: B. Norman The Movie Greats (1981)
- Never judge a book by its movie.: attributed; Michael Lent Breakfast with Sharks (2004)
- Photography is truth. The cinema is truth 24 times per second.1930– French film director: Le Petit Soldat (1960 film)
- Ce n'est pas une image juste, c'est juste une image.This is not a just image, it is just an image.1930– French film director: Colin MacCabe Godard: Images, Sounds, Politics (1980)
- georges franju: Movies should have a beginning, a middle and an end.
jean-luc godard: Certainly, but not necessarily in that order.1930– French film director: in Time 14 September 1981; see Aristotle - Nobody knows anything.on the film industry1931– American novelist, dramatist, and screenwriter: Adventures in the Screen Trade (1984)
- Why should people go out and pay to see bad movies when they can stay at home and see bad television for nothing?1882–1974 American film producer: in Observer 9 September 1956
- Pictures are for entertainment, messages should be delivered by Western Union.1882–1974 American film producer: Arthur Marx Goldwyn (1976) ch. 15
- What we need is a story that starts with an earthquake and works its way up to a climax.1882–1974 American film producer: attributed, perhaps apocryphal
- If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach.1899–1980 British-born film director: in Newsweek 11 June 1956
- The words ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ which I saw on an Italian movie poster, are perhaps the briefest statement imaginable of the basic appeal of movies.1919–2001 American film critic: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (1968) ‘Note on the Title’
- Hollywood money isn't money. It's congealed snow, melts in your hand, and there you are.1893–1967 American critic and humorist: Malcolm Cowley Writers at Work 1st Series (1958)
- There is only one thing that can kill the movies, and that is education.1879–1935 American actor and humorist: Autobiography of Will Rogers (1949)
- The lunatics have taken charge of the asylum.on the take-over of United Artists by Charles Chaplin and othersc.1881–1947 American film producer: Terry Ramsaye A Million and One Nights (1926) vol. 2, ch. 79
- This is the biggest electric train a boy ever had!of the RKO studios1915–85 American actor and film director: Roy Fowler Orson Welles (1946) ch. 6
- A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.1915–85 American actor and film director: ‘Ribbon of Dreams’ in International Film Annual no. 2 (1958)
- I wouldn't say when you've seen one Western you've seen the lot; but when you've seen the lot you get the feeling you've seen one.1928– English journalist: Sunday Best (1976) ‘Decoding the West’
