Friday, January 20, 2012

If you ever wondered why there's not a book called The Wit and Wisdom of Robert Redford...

... wonder no more. Note how Redford conflates European culture and government handouts:
Dressed in jeans and a black sweater, Redford recalled the time he spent in France and Italy when he was a student, saying it probably still influences his outlook -- and even the Sundance Film Festival, which he launched in the 1980s.

More generally, he added: "For years and years and years, you've all experienced what we had to live with, the fact that other countries are far more supportive of their artists than we are...

"But when you have congressional narrow-minded people, people who are afraid of change when change is the only thing that succeeds, the only thing we know is going to happen is that things are going to change.

"There are people that are afraid of it so they fight it .. it's just tragic that we don't support our artists more than we do. And as long as we're going to have that kind of thinking in Congress, we're going to have to fight it."
Question: if change, like s**t, "happens" - i.e., it's inevitable - why do we need the government to nudge it along? And even if government subsidizes movies, how are you going to make people watch them? Is that something else liberals believe the government can mandate?

9 comments:

Michael Lonie said...

As long as the guvmint subsidizes movies (and other "artistic creations") there is no need for people to watch them. Who needs an audience when the bureaucrats shovel out the gelt no matter how bad your production is?

jonah said...

I guess "government" subsidized the Sistine Chapel and Euro royalty paid the bills for lots of composers but is that what the left wants today?

Left and Right have completely reversed themselves from then to now.

RebeccaH said...

Have you taken a gander at Robert Redford lately? He's still trying to be the Golden Boy, when his face looks like somebody took a hammer to it.

"Support our artists"? Whatever happened to artists supporting themselves by producing, you know, real art?

Paco said...

Rebecca: Yeah, I think Redford got that whole Dorian Gray thing backwards. He really isn't aging well.

JeffS said...

Meh. When Redford opens his wallet to directly support thousands of "starving" artists, until he has to borrow money to do so, and go deeply into debt, well beyond his ability to repay those debts, I'll listen to him.

Until then, he can kiss my non-artistic arse.

Paco said...

Michael: Surely you're not suggesting that artists are interested primarily in mere lucre? Why, I just imagine such a thing!

Paco said...

can't imagine such a thing.

bruce said...

'Change' - that was the theme of Shyamalan's Lady in the Swimming Pool or whatsitcalled. I think Redford and Shyamalan would make a great team.

Clueless Bob doesn't realise that Europe has 'changed' since those heady postwar decades, and nowadays it can influence the outlook of conservatives. But the American Left always wears the biggest blinkers. Orwell's 1984's theme of mindless dogmatism wasn't written specifically for them, but fits like a glove.

Anonymous said...

Deborah Leigh said... Redford is channeling Maynard G. Krebs.