Create your own visual style... let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.
Orson WellesRead
The classy gangster is a Hollywood invention.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that the image of a refined gangster is a creation of cinema rather than reality.
Orson Wellesβ observation highlights how Hollywood has romanticized and glamorized the figure of the gangster to the point of presenting an ideal that rarely aligns with real-life criminality. By portraying gangsters as 'classy', filmmakers create a narrative where crime is intertwined with style and sophistication, ultimately blurring the lines between morality and allure in popular culture.
Themes
GangsterHollywoodInventionClassyArt
In practice
Example use cases
During a film studies lecture, I referenced Orson Welles' quote to discuss the representation of crime in cinema.
More from Orson Welles
All quotes βWhen people accept breaking the law as normal, something happens to the whole society.
Orson WellesRead
A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army.
Orson WellesRead
I passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.
Orson WellesRead
Old age is the only disease you dont want to be cured of.
Orson WellesRead
Movie directing is a perfect refuge for the mediocre.
Orson WellesRead
Similar quotes
The basis for my own work during the years just before coming to America in 1915 was a desire to break up forms - to 'decompose' them much along the lines the cubists had done. But I wanted to go further - much further - in fact, in quite another direction altogether.
Marcel DuchampRead
Art is purposiveness without purpose.
Immanuel KantRead
That for me was the big turning point in my artistic life, when my wife and I had our kids. The world got infused with morality again. Every person in the world should theoretically be loved as much as I love my daughters.
George SaundersRead
When I am writing best, I really am lost in my world. I lose track of the outside world. I have a difficult time balancing between my real world and the artificial world.
George R. R. MartinRead
The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.
Ansel AdamsRead
When you first start out in stand-up and, probably, as any performer, you enjoy the attention so much, and even though that hasn't died down on stage, it certainly has satiated whatever was in me that was needing that much attention. When I'm off stage, it's not something that I really need.
Tig NotaroRead