James Mackintosh Quotes

It's hard to make a cultural phenomenon every time.

I don't want to be an art-house movie guy, where people who go to film school can discuss your work, but people who haven't studied cinema can't appreciate it. By the same token, I don't want to be the guy who's making this commercial pap that people lap up but that disappears the minute you leave the theater.

For some critics we might be uncool on account of our popularity.

It's just amazing to do something that's part of a pop culture phenomenon.

Anything popular is populist, and populist is rarely a good adjective.

Pop doesn't really look back. It can't. What makes pop work is simplicity.

The No. 1 quote critics give me is, 'Thom, your work is irrelevant.' Now, that's a fascinating, fascinating comment. Yes, irrelevant to the little subculture, this microculture, of modern art. But here's the point: My art is relevant because it's relevant to 10 million people. That makes me the most relevant artist in this culture.

Today it's not culture; it's box office.

I think it's always important for academics to study popular culture, even if the thing they are studying is idiotic. If it's successful or made a dent in culture, then it is worthy of study to find out why.

Give the public what it wants.

People gravitate to what they believe to be popular... Technology is enabling even more of that.

The value of kitsch exists in its novelty and in its connotations to more legitimate counterparts.

Some people think big audiences are crass and that, say, a comedy that appeals to a wide audience is pandering. Other people would argue that you could say that about Moliere.

I don't even know what is popular.

Everybody wants to go see the big hit [at the theatre]. Not because it's any good. Because it's the big hit and everybody wants to be able to talk about the big hit.

Everything that is popular, it has been said, deserves the attention of philosophers: and this is for the obvious reason, that although it may not be of any worth in itself, yet it characterizes the people.

On reflection, some things do super well because they hit with the time. Some things do super well because they are able to activate a kind of echo chamber or bandwagon or cascade - they didn't particularly hit with the time. Some things are just too astonishingly good to not hit the top. Those three explanations, with respect to the Star Wars phenomenon, seem to me all to pass the plausibility test, and to explore them, with respect to Star Wars, I think casts light not just on the saga of our time, but also on everything about our culture.

I want to make something commercial that people can pick up on.

I think there's a far more general audience now because I've done more populist stuff on telly.

I think the general public's response to my projects is very strong. You can be an intellectual and say that popularity detracts from architectural quality. On the other hand, you can see in the public's identification something very positive.

Artists like Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga have more sway over popular minds than a politician.

I think that 'Twilight' is so big that nothing can affect it.

Art cannot be looked at as an elite, sacred event anymore. It has to be embraced as an accessible, popular form, which is what I believe theater is at its roots.

If you start pandering to young people, you're going to get accused of simply giving people what they want.

We all get swept up in the hype machine. Nobody is immune to that.