The Cubists used the figure, but they broke it up.
Thinking rationally is often different from "positive thinking," in that it is a realistic assessment of the situation, with a view towards rectifying the problem if possible.
Critics should be looked at simply as commentators.
I don't know any filmmaker who can deconstruct their own work.
I think other people's interpretations of what I've written are a lot better than what I have, because I don't understand a lot of what I write.
All good criticism should be judged the way art is. You shouldn't read it the way you read history or science.
I belong rather to a more classical tradition of social analysis.
There are very few critics who have historical context or authority.
The critic should describe, and not prescribe.
In a strange way, you have to have a certain amount of distance from a thing in order to be able to write about it.
What I really like is an intelligent review. It doesn't have to be positive. A review that has some kind of insight, and sometimes people say something that's startling or is so poignant.
And today more than ever, knowing about that society involves first of all choosing what approach the inquiry will take, and that necessarily means choosing how society can answer.
I view my role now as providing more of a macro-level skepticism, rather than saying this poll is good or this poll is evil.
I don't care about the bare fact that anyone liked or didn't like a book or movie; they can only interest me in that bare fact by writing an intelligent review.
When you have answers, when everything has a reason, when it makes sense to an analytical person, you're going to be more successful. You're going to be more comfortable.
I guess I've always been drawn to roles that have smart characters commenting on what's happening around them.
It's not my job to tell people what a work means.
Critics have a job to do. They do not criticise you without reason.
There is a certain comfort that comes from feeling intellectually apart from phenomena. That you have the luxury of time to reflect or apply scholarly thinking to art and culture.
When you are absorbed in a biographical subject, you get so close you don't realise the potential effect of what you say. You are trying to get at the truth.
