|
In the old
days villains had moustaches and kicked the dog. Audiences
are smarter today. They don't want their villain to be
thrown at them with green limelight on his face. They want
an ordinary human being with failings.
-- Alfred Hitchcock
1899-1980, Anglo-American
Filmmaker
A villain must
be a thing of power, handled with delicacy and grace. He
must be wicked enough to excite our aversion, strong enough
to arouse our fear, human enough to awaken some transient
gleam of sympathy. We must triumph in his downfall, yet not
barbarously nor with contempt, and the close of his career
must be in harmony with all its previous development.
-- Agnes Repplier
1858-1950, American Author,
Social Critic
When it comes
to the point, really bad men are just as rare as really good
ones.
-- George Bernard Shaw
1856-1950, Irish-born British
Dramatist
The experience
of the gangster as an experience of art is universal to
Americans. There is almost nothing we understand better or
react to more readily or with quicker intelligence. In ways
that we do not easily or willingly define, the gangster
speaks for us, expressing that part of the American psyche
which rejects the qualities and the demands of modern life,
which rejects ''Americanism'' itself.
-- Robert Warshow
|
