QuoteProject
Films might get to you and your subconscious and make a little difference, but when the vigilante drum beats, the mob screams and the conformists go along with it. There have to be people who are non-conformists.
Oliver Stone
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Films can influence our subconscious, but true change requires non-conformist voices to challenge the majority.

In this quote, Oliver Stone emphasizes the subtle yet significant impact that films and media can have on society and individual thinking. However, he argues that in times of societal pressure, it is the non-conformists who challenge the status quo and inspire real change, highlighting the importance of independent thought in the face of collective conformity.

Themes

FilmsNon-ConformitySocietyInfluenceChange

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about the power of art to inspire change.

More from Oliver Stone

Football is mesmerizing, because it's a figurative war. You go in one direction till you get there, but you get there as a team, not as an individual. Players bond whether they're black or white, much as soldiers do.
Oliver StoneRead
Never underestimate the power of jealousy and the power of envy to destroy. Never underestimate that.
Oliver StoneRead
One of the joys of going to the movies was that it was trashy, and we should never lose that.
Oliver StoneRead
Anybody who's been through a divorce will tell you that at one point. they've thought murder. The line between thinking murder and doing murder isn't that major.
Oliver StoneRead
You do the best job you can. You take it step by step. It's hard enough to make a movie. If it works, that's great. If it means something beyond the moment to somebody, they can take it and it lasts through the years, we'll see.
Oliver StoneRead
I am not trying to be a historian and a dramatist; I'm a dramatist, a dramatic historian, or one who does a dramatic interpretation of history.
Oliver StoneRead

Similar quotes

Writing fantasy lets me imagine a great deal more than, say, writing about alligators, and lets me write about places more distant than Florida, but I can tell you things about Florida and alligators, let you make the connection all on your own.
Terry BrooksRead
Having been an actor and a writer for so long - 20 years or so - I felt that it would be daft to go to one's grave without having directed. It's a natural extension of writing and acting, and so I knew it would happen one day.
Stephen FryRead
The Marquesan girls dance all over; not only do their feet dance, but their arms, hands, fingers, ay, their very eyes seem to dance in their heads.
Herman MelvilleRead
Outlaws, like lovers, poets, and tubercular composers who cough blood onto piano keys, do their finest work in the slippery rays of the moon.
Tom RobbinsRead
All great films are a resolution of a conflict between darkness and light. There is no single right way to express yourself. There are infinite possibilities for the use of light with shadows and colors. The decisions you make about composition, movement and the countless combinations of these and other variables is what makes it an art.
Vittorio StoraroRead
I have wasted the greater part of my life looking for money and trying to get along, trying to make my work from this terribly expensive paintbox, which is a movie. And I've spent too much energy on things that have nothing to do with making a movie. It's about two percent moviemaking and ninety-eight percent hustling. It's no way to spend a life.
Orson WellesRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.