“Perhaps no work of art is possible without belief in the audience,” Kael wrote, “the kind of belief that has nothing to do with facts and figures about what people actually buy or enjoy but comes out of the individual artist’s absolute conviction that only the best he can do is fit to be offered to others.… An artist’s sense of honor is founded on the honor due others. Honor in the arts—and in show business, too—is giving of one’s utmost, even if the audience does not appear to know the difference, even if the audience shows every sign of preferring something easy, cheap, and synthetic. The
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