Garson Kanin Quotes

The trouble with movies as a business is that it's an art, and the trouble with movies as art is that it's a business.

it's difficult in Hollywood to be allowed to try anything. It's all a terrible compromise. There is no time for art. All that matters is what they call box office.

The main trouble with Hollywood is that the guys you have to pitch to, the guys who run the studios, are all business school grads.

Going back to my film education, I always have that voice in my head that's always screaming, 'Sell out!' And that's good: you want that, because it keeps you on your toes, and it's important to remember what's actually important.

In the 1970s, a lot of critics didn't understand video. I got a lot of bad reviews. But film-makers didn't understand what we were doing, either. There were actual fistfights between film-makers and video-makers. I was witness to one.

Controversy is part of the nature of art and creativity.

I've been around a long time, and when I was at the top of the hill, I was very ahead of my time! Evidence of that is that my music is still current today - you know, rappers sample it all the time. So, rather than compromise my artistic integrity, I concentrated on movies.

Politics is politics; art is art. If you play a political role, you have to stop being an artist.

As an artist, you want to make good stories and create good art; as a businessman, you want to make money and make sure the investors are happy. The two will always clash, unfortunately.

Back to the painting of the Sistine Chapel, there's always been run-ins between benefactors and artists.

It is almost impossible to reconcile self expression with the creative act.

That dichotomy between the public consumption of the work and my intent and practice in making it is an uneasy one for me, on occasion.

Dealing with those personalities and the people who run this music thing has been most challenging. It's hard to really communicate things to people who run a business yet forget the nature of the business. They only look at the bottom line and the financial return, you know, they forget what it is they're packaging. It's art.

I love making music, but I also love making music that's on the radio. In some circles, that is considered less artistic. And I've always tried to resist those people that say the two can't exist at the same time.

Hollywood is a double feeling. Love and hate. With a talented film director, I cannot resist. They are such charming and intelligent people. But each time, it is very difficult to deal with other people. I have to satisfy other people. The director or the producer. Not me. I have to satisfy myself. But then I have to deliver my music.

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.

I wrote on my desk wall when I was writing the film...'Art is socialism, but life is capitalism.' That's the hard thing in all of it if you expect to make a living.

I believe the cinema is one of our principal forms of art. It is an incredibly powerful way to tell uplifitng stories that can move people to cry with joy and inspire them to reach for the stars.

It is almost as safe to assume that an artist of any dignity is against his country, i.e., against the environment in which God hath placed him, as it is to assume that his country is against the artist.

I’m torn between the desire to create and the desire to destroy.

Film has become a marketed commodity, and the opportunities and audiences for art cinema have grown smaller. There is a general downturn in cultural literacy, perhaps because of television.

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.

The challenge artists face today is whether to be an underground, unheard genius, or to dilute their art for the marketplace.

I think Hollywood's gotten more reactionary and conservative over the years, because there's no longer art in Hollywood. Art suffers in Hollywood.

The desire to be loved is really death when it comes to art.