I think television has betrayed the meaning of democratic speech, adding visual chaos to the confusion of voices. What role does silence have in all this noise?
Interpretation
This quote critiques television's impact on meaningful discourse in a democracy, highlighting the importance of silence amidst the noise.
Federico Fellini reflects on the challenges that television poses to democratic communication. He suggests that the overwhelming visual and auditory stimuli create confusion, detracting from the essence of meaningful dialogue. By questioning the role of silence in a world filled with incessant noise, he emphasizes the need for contemplation and thoughtful engagement in conversations that matter.
In practice
During a panel discussion about media influence, one can use this quote to highlight the impact of television on public discourse.
I’m just a storyteller, and the cinema happens to be my medium. I like it because it recreates life in movement, enlarges it, enhances it, distills it. For me, it’s far closer to the miraculous creation of life than, say, a painting or music or even literature. It’s not just an art form; it’s actually a new form of life, with its own rhythms, cadences, perspectives and transparencies. It’s my way of telling a story.
Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years can pass in a second, and you can hop from one place to another. It's a language made of image. And in the real cinema, every object and every light means something, as in a dream.
No critic writing about a film could say more than the film itself, although they do their best to make us think the oppposite.
A created thing is never invented and it is never true: it is always and ever itself.
What's important is the way we say it. Art is all about craftsmanship. Others can interpret craftsmanship as style if they wish. Style is what unites memory or recollection, ideology, sentiment, nostalgia, presentiment, to the way we express all that. It's not what we say but how we say it that matters.
We can all pretend to be cynical and scheming, but when we’re faced with purity and innocence, the cynical mask drops off.
There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation.
Vanity is a static thing. It puts it faith in what it has, and is easily wounded. Pride is active, and satisfied only with what it can do, hence accustomed not to feel small stings.
Physicians of the utmost fame, Were called at once; but when they came They answered, as they took their fees, 'There is no Cure for this Disease.'
Why should I care about posterity? What's posterity ever done for me?
I thought: hope cannot be said to exist, nor can it be said not to exist. It is just like roads across the earth. For actually the earth had no roads to begin with, but when many men pass one way, a road is made.
Ser compreendido é prostituir-se.
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