The real culture gap wasn’t East versus West; it was hardware versus software. If you’re the industry leader in videotape recorders, you design a dozen different boxes, but the pieces inside are the same. Your engineers tell you how long each part will last before breaking down. It’s all hard numbers. A movie idea, on the other hand, has no intrinsic worth. Give the same concept to ten directors and you’ll get ten different films. Film artists don’t make a garment from a bolt of cloth—they create the cloth. The finished product’s value is subjective, your taste against mine.
