Ridley Scott Quotes

The ugliest spectacle is that of artists selling themselves. Art as a commodity is an ugly idea... The artist as businessman is uglier than the businessman as artist.

I was disillusioned by Hollywood at the time, but now I've come to accept that's just the way things are: it's called show business, not show art.

If audiences are sort of interested in movies that are made like McDonald's hamburgers, which do have a value in the world, then we have to re-evaluate our entire career.

As soon as any art is pursued with a view of money, then farewell, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, all hope of genuine good work.

Art is a bad word in Hollywood. You use art too many times and they show you the elevator and then your name is taken off the parking lot.

I think the biggest thing that people fear when it comes to art becoming a business is those authentic, pure aspirations of art being compromised.

I respect the system out there in Hollywood, I really do, but I'm very intent on art versus commerce. I want to do it all - film, TV and theatre - if it's the right job.

I'm very hard on the art world just being a big business.

There's always been an ongoing struggle between commerce and art.

The kind of acting I used to enjoy no longer exists because your prime consideration is the budget, running time, the cost - and whether they'll understand it in Milwaukee.

I have cut four albums so far, and all of them have been trendsetters and commercially successful. I believe that once you start taking art in commercial terms, it ceases to be art.

It can be a machine. The machine tries to make money and forget about the heart and the art. Hollywood is more about making money.

I love Michael Bay movies. I don't think I'd be selling out if I did one. I happen to like his movies. I think selling out is doing something you don't believe in, and you're doing it for a selfish purpose.

For me, money has never been an indicator. And it is very sad that each and every film these days is being judged by the money that it makes. It's a world that I don't want to be a part of, and I try and stay away from that.

The saying "the business of art is different than the purpose of art" makes sense, and what are you going to do about that? You have some obligation to get the work out there, you believe in it enough that it should be out in the public, but of course it goes through a system that takes it pretty far away from the reasons you made them.

And it's possible to monetize your art without compromising the integrity of it for commerce.

It cannot be emphasized too strongly that art, as such, does not "pay," to use an American expression - at least, not in the beginning - and that the art that has to pay its own way is apt to become vitiated and cheap.

Films are an art form which are sold after packaging in this commercial world

We need writers who know the difference between the production of a commodity and the practice of an art.

The consequence of making it a business thing and making an artist the same as a Wall Street trader is that you do get a robot by the end of it. It becomes more robotic as opposed to being more soulful.

When people asked to buy my work I always said no. I'd had this rather rarefied idea that I didn't want money going through my head while I was making work. But after the car crash I realized that none of my work was owned by anyone. After that, I grew up a bit.

The movies today are too rich to have any room for genuine artists. They produce a few passable craftsmen, but no artists. Can you imagine a Beethoven making $100, 000 a year?

Beautiful art sells. If it sells itself, it is an idolatrous commodity; if it sells anything else, it is a seductive advertisement.

You cannot create a piece of art merely for money. Doing it as part of commerce so denudes art of wonder that it ceases to be art.

Art can be very political but that can't be the purpose of art, it can't be the driving force. It isn't with any of the books that I love, anyway.