Seeing a rotten picture for the special effects is like eating a tough steak for the smothered onions, or reading a bad book for the dirty parts. Optical wizardry is something a movie can do that a book can’t but it is no substitute for a story, for logic, for meaning. It is ornamentation, not substance. In fact, whenever a science fiction picture is praised overeffusively for its special effects, I know it’s a bad picture. Is that all they can find to talk about?
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) Russian-American author, polymath, biochemist
“Editorial: The Reluctant Critic,” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (12 Nov 1978)
(Source)
Writing about Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Quotations about:
cinema
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
There are two cinemas: the films we have actually seen and the memories we have of them. The gap between the two widens over the years.
Molly Haskell (b. 1939) American feminist film critic and author.
From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies (3rd ed, 2016; orig 1973)
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There is a contingent of the digital-effects community to whom that is the holy grail — to create photographically real humans. To me that is the dumbest goal that you could possibly have. What’s wonderful about the medium of animation isn’t recreating reality. It’s distilling it.
Brad Bird (b. 1957) American director, animator and screenwriter [Phillip Bradley Bird]
“How Pixar Conquered the Planet,” The Guardian (12 Nov 2004)
(Source)
Even at the movies, we laugh together, we weep alone.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays (2001)
