The Great Movies II Quotes

“When, in a free society, the press is criticized for negativity, that almost always means it has dared to question the policies of the party in power. 'Patriotism,' Samuel Johnson said, 'is the last refuge of a scoundrel.' He could have been speaking of those who use it to shield themselves from dissent.”
― Roger Ebert, The Great Movies II

“When a movie character is really working, we become that character. That’s what the movies offer: escapism into lives other than our own.”
― Roger Ebert, The Great Movies II

“The movies that last, the ones we return to, don’t always have lofty themes or Byzantine complexities. Sometimes they last because they are arrows straight to the heart.”
― Roger Ebert, The Great Movies II

“The other Bonds were not wrong in the role (even Lazenby has his defenders), but they were not Connery, and that was their cross to bear.”
― Roger Ebert, The Great Movies II

“Most courtroom movies feel it necessary to end with a clear-cut verdict. But 12 Angry Men never states whether the defendant is innocent or guilty. It is about whether the jury has a reasonable doubt about his guilt.”
― Roger Ebert, The Great Movies II

“One of my delights in these books, on the other hand, has been to include movies not often cited as “great”—some because they are dismissed as merely popular (Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark), some because they are frankly entertainments (Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Rififi), some because they are too obscure (The Fall of the House of Usher, Stroszek). We go to different movies for different reasons, and greatness comes in many forms.”
― Roger Ebert, The Great Movies II

“The world of French crime films is a particular place, informed by the French love for Hollywood film noir, a genre they identified and named. But the great French noirs of the 1950s are not copies of Hollywood; instead, they have a particularly French flavor.”
― Roger Ebert, The Great Movies II

“Listening to Bailey, it occurred to me that the best commentary tracks are often by experts who did not work on the film but love it and have given it a lot of thought. They’re more useful than those rambling tracks where directors (notoriously shy about explaining their techniques or purposes) reminisce about the weather on the set that day.”
― Roger Ebert, The Great Movies II

“The 1960s ended sadly, as did Bonnie and Clyde, as did Jules and Jim, as did Thelma & Louise, a film they influenced; the movement from comedy to tragedy was all the more powerful for audiences who expected one or the other.”
― Roger Ebert, The Great Movies II

“He was an editor for seven years before directing his first film, and his career stands as an argument for the theory that editors make better directors than cine-matographers do; the cinematographer is seduced by the look of a film, while the editor is faced with the task of making it work as a story.”
― Roger Ebert, The Great Movies II

“Another of Keaton’s strategies was to avoid anticipation. Instead of showing you what was about to happen, he showed you what was happening; the surprise and the response are both unexpected, and funnier. He also gets laughs by the application of perfect logic.”
― Roger Ebert, The Great Movies II

“The movie has, above all, effortless charm. Once we catch on that nothing much is going to happen, we can relax and share the amusement of the actors, who are essentially being asked to share their playfulness.”
― Roger Ebert, The Great Movies II

“Unlike modern films where superstars dominate every scene, the Hollywood films of the golden era have depth in writing and casting, so the story can resonate with more than one tone.”
― Roger Ebert, The Great Movies II

“In Grapes he worked with astonishingly low levels of light; consider the many night scenes and the shots in the deserted Joad homestead, where Tom and the preacher seem illuminated of a single candle, Tom silhouetted, Casy side-lit. The power of Ford (1895-1973) was rooted in strong stories, classical technique, and direct expression. Years of apprenticeship in low-budget silent films, many of them quickies shot on location, had steeled him against unnecessary setups and fancy camera work. There is a rigorous purity in his visual style that serves the subject well. The Grapes of Wrath contains not a single shot that seems careless or routine.”
― Roger Ebert, The Great Movies II

“Say Anything depends above all on the human qualities of its actors. Cusack and Skye must have been cast for their clear-eyed frankness, for their ability to embody the burning intensity of young idealism. A movie like this is possible because its maker believes in the young characters, and in doing the right thing, and in staying true to oneself. The sad teenage comedies of recent years are apparently made by filmmakers who have little respect for themselves or their characters, and sneer because they dare not dream.”
― Roger Ebert, The Great Movies II

“Saturday Night Fever was Gene Siskel’s favorite movie, and he watched it at least seventeen times. We all have movies like that, titles that transcend ordinary categories of good and bad and penetrate straight to our hearts.”
― Roger Ebert, The Great Movies II

“There is a children’s film made for the world we should live in, rather than the one we occupy. A film with no villains. No fight scenes. No evil adults. No fighting between the two kids. No scary monsters. No darkness before the dawn. A world that is benign. A world where if you meet a strange, towering creature in the forest, you curl up on its tummy and have a nap.”
― Roger Ebert, The Great Movies II

“We’d had a revelation. This was the direction American movies should take: into idiosyncratic characters, into dialogue with an ear for the vulgar and the literate, into a plot free to surprise us about the characters, into an existential ending not required to be happy.”
― Roger Ebert, The Great Movies II

“Buñuel’s films constitute one of the most distinctive bodies of work in the first century of films. He was cynical, but not depressed. We say one thing and do another, yes, but that doesn’t make us evil—only human and, from his point of view, funny He has been called a cruel filmmaker, but the more I look at his films the more wisdom and acceptance I find. He sees that we are hypocrites, admits to being one himself, and believes we were probably made that way.”
― Roger Ebert, The Great Movies II