At the movies, we are ...

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.
 See image
 Pauline Kael

Quotes from the same author

Where there is a will, there is a way. If there is a chance in a million that you can do something, anything, to keep what you want from ending, do it. Pry the door open or, if need be, wedge your foot in that door and keep it open.
 See image
 Pauline Kael
An avidity for more is built into the love of movies. Something else is built in: you have to be open to the idea of getting drunk on movies. (Being able to talk about movies with someone -- to share the giddy high excitement you feel -- is enough for a friendship.
 See image
 Pauline Kael
Good movies make you care, make you believe in possibilities again.
 See image
 Pauline Kael
Citizen Kane is perhaps the one American talking picture that seems as fresh now as the day it opened. It may seem even fresher.
 See image
 Pauline Kael
If you're afraid of movies that excite your senses, you're afraid of movies.
 See image
 Pauline Kael