Citizen Kane Is Perhaps The One American

Before Seeing Truffaut 's Small Change, I Was Afraid It Was Going To Be One Of Those Simple, Natural Films About Childhood Which I Generally Try To Avoid I'm Just Not Good Enough To Go To Them. But This Series Of Sketches On The General Theme Of The Resilience Of Children Turns Out To Be That Rarity A Poetic Comedy That's Really Funny.

For A While In The Twenties And Thirties, Art Was Talked About As A Substitute For Religion; Now B Movies Are A Substitute For Religion.

At The Movies, We Are Gradually Being Conditioned To Accept Violence As A Sensual Pleasure. The Directors Used To Say They Were Showing Us Its Real Face And How Ugly It Was In Order To Sensitize Us To Its Horrors. You Don't Have To Be Very Keen To See That They Are Now In Fact Desensitizing Us.

If There Is Any Test That Can Be Applied To Movies, It's That The Good Ones Never Make You Feel Virtuous.

We Will Never Know The Extent Of The Damage Movies Are Doing To Us, But Movie Art, It Appears, Thrives On Moral Chaos. When The Country Is Paralyzed, The Popular Culture May Tell Us Why. After Innocence, Winners Become Losers. Movies Are Probably Inuring Us To Corruption; The Sellout Is The Hero-survivor For Our Times.